BrainPower at ATLAS SkillTech University

On November 25, 2022, ATLAS SkillTech University led by Dr. Indu Shahani, hosted an event on design-thinking for education: Thought Leaders Conference. The event saw participation from esteemed delegates joining from prestigious colleges all over Mumbai. The workshop was planned to assist the participants in getting aligned with the new National Education Policy (NEP). Ergo, it aimed at generating creative ideas emphasizing on empathy and agility to integrate the NEP into the classrooms.

The ATLAS SkillTech team led by Prof. Ritika Karnani, consisted of experienced teachers who have been using design thinking process to build their curriculums and ignite critical thinking into the undergraduate and postgraduate students. The bright delegates present at the workshop kindled the fire of intelligence to eradicate the distance between various academic difficulties and their plausible solutions.

A 60-minute all hands activity was chalked out to understand the stakeholders of academia, challenge their assumptions and redefine their problems. This interactive SCRUM activity was planned, where teams worked on a focused problem to unpack its complexity and generate an idea bank which the participants may test in their classrooms.

The cohort was organized into nine teams where each participant thought of a concern. The participants then discussed all the listed problems that they think their establishment faces and narrowed down to one. Upon finalizing the issue, they built an empathy map which helped them to understand the issue from diverse aspects.

The teams then contemplated about fifty different, feasible and plausible remedies for the chosen issue. After reflecting on this wide-ranging set of solutions, the teams choose one solution that could be most-effective as well as could be measured. Eventually, the teams had now identified an issue and a quantifiable solution for it.

Here is a snapshot of the identified issues and their measurable solutions deliberated by the groups-

The higher-order goal of this activity was to think of creative solutions for the problems faced by academia. Solutions, which were not obvious in the initial understanding of the problem but evolved as a result of an entirely new way of thinking. This magical concoction helped all the participants to uncover alternative strategies which lead to truly innovative keys for these unresolved problems.

Under the guidance of Dr. Chetana Asbe and Dr. Varsha Agarwal, this article has been authored by:

Ms. Annanya Mishra

Annanya is pursuing MBA from ATLAS SkillTech University. She is a determined and self-motivated individual who seeks to make a concrete career in Marketing. She possesses excellent communication skills and has an eye for detail. To further her education and make use of her abilities and expertise, she is fond of writing articles.

Ms. Saloni Negi

Saloni is a first-year student of MBA at ATLAS SkillTech University. She is talented, ambitious and hardworking with a keen interest in digital marketing, social media and leading projects. Furthermore, she is adept at handling multiple tasks on a daily basis competently and at working well under pressure. Her key strength is written communication, building strong relationships with people in order to deliver the best results.