CREATIVE/ Design THINKING &
PROBLEM SOLVING
Mawlamyine seems to be a much nicer place to live to many people due to its peaceful life here. I often go to sleep hearing a chant echoing from a temple nearby and waking up still hearing that chant J. It has been kind of a ritual of my life here for few last few days. I decided to stay in Mawlamyine a little bit longer to participate in a first short design training course that Point B is planning to roll out with the local community here. It was a good experiment for me to go through briefly a whole process of design thinking and connecting it with what I have known and observed about design thinking work. It came with more clarity about the values of design thinking: building on optimism – open mind and belief in more possibilities and collaboration in the process of testing something. Isn’t it similar to what ‘Appreciative Inquiry’?
And the story about Point B would not be completed without mentioning about Rochelle and Greg who shared with me how they use design thinking to start Point B in Myanmar and going through all the challenges to build trust before they signed the MOU and start Point B here in 2013. Their aim is not only to teach about design thinking but also to support change agents — people who want to create positive change in their communities.
I met few of the change agents and impressed with the community project (i.e. Child right, capacity training for graduate students, public transportation, etc) that they rolled out as a result of attending 6–month design training course at Point B. Sharing with me about their experience going through the design thinking process ‘intention, need findings, systhesis, ideation, prototyping’, many admitted that ‘synthesis’ seems to be a challenge due to the lack of critical thinking and creativity in the current education. And it is all the sharing and stories heard from meeting with people that helps me understand more about culture of Myanmar. That is also a very nice part of GIST.
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Yes! I’m on the move again – in an express bus from Yangon to Mawlamyine and just checked in to the hotel! The ‘independent study travel’ part of GIST has officially started since we finished the training program with MARA. So what my project is all about? That - I’m still in the process of fining tune it and define it clearer. But I know that I want to make difference, do something to create social impact and I believe I can do it. And big dream starts with small step – building capacity training through creativity and collective problem solving. I started by exploring about design thinking. I first came across this concept in a meeting with Stanford Design School in APLP field study to the mainland. The concept emphasizes on understanding about the people (the end users/ consumers) – feel, think, do – which I know later called ‘empathy’ – the fundamental of design thinking A meeting with Dr. Chung from Taylor’s University and Dr. Ong from MINDS was a guidance. ‘At Taylor’s University, we don’t say the word ‘problem’, it’s the opportunity.’ Dr. Chung shared with me. As I asked him about how design thinking can help in solving different types of problems, he shared that design thinking is not the perfect tool, but it is a guided process to help people to think for possibility based on deep understanding of the users’ needs. He introduced another method called TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving), which is also a tool for creative problem solving. I remembered coming across it when I visited a MARA school in Penang with students at secondary level. I am impressed that students in Malaysia are taught and equipped with such skills at very young age. And I remembered Dr. Ong – even at his current age shared with me that when he looked at thing, he always asked and had curiosity of how to make it better. And ‘you have to figure out by yourself as others may not have the same problem and they don’t know the solution’ – he said. The meeting in KL sets some understanding for me to explore further as I came to Myanmar – Yangon. It is a place with many kind people that I’ve met. People here often think that I am a Burmese. Somehow, I have special affection with the country and the people here. Now if I have a super power, I would wish that I were able to speak all the languages and make conversation with the local people here. Back to business! I continued to search for understanding of practical application of design thinking in business and social work. Some conversation with Sai – APLP alumni and other staff at Proximity Design and especially the sharing of speakers from Frog in a social innovation event have shed better light for me to visualize how ‘human centered design’ (a similar approach of design thinking) is applied though out a social innovation project. And again, a lot of work is focused on the initial stage of understanding the community who the solutions are designed for. Applying the first step of design thinking, I’ve tried to have conversations with various people to understand about the challenges that people/ organizations here are facing. There is no doubt that Myanmar has huge potential on its own in every single development aspect. But capacity building/ shortage of skilled workers is something that I heard in most conversations. In that spectrum, there is also strong emphasis about creativity/ innovation, especially in education. I had a chance to conduct a workshop of future scenario about future education of Myanmar and see how people long for having a better education by having better skilled teachers, international teachers, interactive learning environment and environment for creative learning and thinking. I am glad to meet with some local people who are passionate about helping build capacity for their local community. Am I up to the challenge/ opportunity? More to be explored and learnt at Mawlamyine J.
Oh, and picture with an awesome APLP alumni that I met :) – Hla Hla and an interesting artist!
As we are taking a long road heading back to KL, I am open to the beautiful nature of Malaysia and see much familiarity with my home place. I look forward to gaining more experience and exposure working with regional MARA community. And I also cannot wait to start my own journey in early in early February.
Finally I have officially embarked on the next journey of the APLP. The past four month of APLP in Hawai’i has provided me not only better knowledge about regional issues and leadership skills, but also stronger motivation in inspiration for doing something greater, making differences and create impact to people’s lives not only in Vietnam but also in the developing areas of South East Asia region. And I see myself fully committed to the learning and sharing that I am going to experience in the next few months.
As we are heading from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, I glad that I have this opportunity to on this journey with my peer group, four other members in the APLP and the APLP Staff. The past two days together has been fruitful. As we spent time with each other on the first day, wandering around, getting lost, eating, chatting and sharing about each other goals and expectation about themselves, about the group, we got to understand each other more and know better how we can support each other. It led us to deeper conversation on the second day as each of us have a chance to share in details about our projects and receive critical and constructive feedback from other members and the staff (Nina and Scott). I learn that although I like working alone, having a chance to have such group discussion and letting other challenging your work and idea is really a great opportunity for me to redo something better. I’ve been really into exploring about design thinking and creativity. I got inspiration from what I read about design thinking and motivated because of the open and positive response and support from some of the people that I’ve contacted. And I’m thankful for people and especially my family who support me to go on this journey. I hope to discover myself in a new zone and discover a good way to help people identify problems and collectively generate new solutions. |
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