Transforming Young Minds Socially through, a Course Social Innovation with a Human Centred Design Approach at Freshman Level of Engineering.

Abstract

We at KLE Tech strongly believe in the philosophy of sensitizing young minds socially and establishing a social connect with the society they live in. Social Innovation is a uniquely designed two-credit course for freshman students of engineering; which catalyses this need through experiential learning and community engagement. The course allows the students to get engaged with the society, stake-holders to find out the prevailing social issues which need their immediate intervention. We have adopted the Human Centred Design Approach which helps the students’ delayer the social issues systematically and provide feasible and sustainable solutions.

Design thinking approach helps students to think over the creative process that engages them in opportunities to experiment, create and prototype models, collect feedback, and redesign the solution keeping end-user in the mind. The course is delivered by a heterogeneous team of experts. Students’ learning is enhanced through field visits, presentations and peer reviews. Student teams engage in multiple community studies to identify a social issue. The social issue is better understood through stakeholder interactions and brainstormed among the teams to look for multiple solutions. The best-suited solution is implemented and its effectiveness is studied. Student’s performance is evaluated through classroom presentations and projects. This course has helped in inducing competencies such as social responsibility, problem-solving skills, observation skills, critical thinking ability, communication skills, teamwork and lifelong learning.