East Africa Design Thinking Workshop Recap

Innovations in Healthcare and SEAD hosted a full-day workshop for East Africa innovators last week in partnership with ThinkPlace Foundation, a leading strategic design consultancy firm in Kenya with experience applying human centered design principles to complex public health initiatives.


The purpose of the workshop – Using Design Thinking to Grow Your Business – was to allow innovators to engage with user insights from work ThinkPlace recently completed with the National Hospital Insurance Fund in Kenya, empathize with user journeys, generate potential ideas for improvements, and reflect on this approach for their own organizations. Our key objectives included: 

• Innovator team members will better understand design thinking tactics (overall design thinking process, customer segmentation using user voice tactics, and tools to implement) by interacting with the NHIF project, its tools and insights;
• Innovators will be able to apply what they learn to their businesses to better align products/services with client demands and;
• Innovators will prototype different ways to communicate internal learning processes using the above tactics to external partners and funders.

Overall, we had 14 participants from 7 organizations across East Africa including a team fromLifeNet International, Burundi. Attendees included: 

• Staff members who work with clients and play a role in collecting or hearing feedback directly from users
• Staff members responsible for incorporating this feedback in the product or service design process or leading the product or service iteration process.

​The presentation and recap from the workshop can be found here.   Thanks to all our participants!

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