Congratulations to top notch CEI team (Joel Koh, Jade Mitchell, Tom Steele and Evelyn Tan) whose work was "Highly Commended" at the Monash Policy at Monash University Early Career Researcher Design Thinking Hackathon held during the 2021 Evidence and Implementation Summit.
The multi-week workshop introduced frameworks commonly used in design thinking and enabled teams to apply new knowledge to practice.
Reflecting on prior experience Evelyn Tan commented, “design thinking has always been a bit of a mystery to me, but through the workshops I learnt that it’s a strategy for dealing with complex challenges that have no apparent or obvious solutions."
Tom Steele noted the team enjoyed the opportunity to bounce ideas with other like-minded ECRs from all over the world. "Complex challenges become more manageable when you can name and define them. I often marvel at how tricky problems can have simple solutions! Look at the 3D zebra crossings in Iceland – the illusion made drivers slow down where the crossing had previously remained dangerous."
Design thinking equipped the team with practical ways to make ‘out of the box thinking’ seem less daunting to apply in research. You can watch the CEI team’s presentation here.