About yia! > Design Thinking
The future of work
is human
Design Thinking is a human-centric approach to problem-solving and a key part of yia!
What is Design Thinking, and why does it matter?
Design thinking is a creative problem-solving process that helps you understand and solve real-world challenges. It's all about thinking outside the box and coming up with innovative solutions. For students, it's a way to develop critical skills like empathy, collaboration, and creativity. For parents, it's a method that prepares your children for the future, equipping them with the tools to tackle complex problems and succeed in a rapidly changing world. By engaging in design thinking, everyone learns to see problems from different perspectives and find practical, effective solutions.
The young innovator awards (yia!) is the only youth programme in the Western Bay of Plenty to offer Design Thinking. It’s a fun and inclusive program for our rangatahi, and is open to all students in intermediate and secondary.
What are you waiting for?
2024 entries are now CLOSED.
Learn more about the stages of Design Thinking
Define
Discover insights from your research
You’ve got some data, great! Now, time to understand it. In this stage of Design Thinking, you need to develop a strong point of view that can help to shape your ideas. Discover key needs across your research and use them for the next stage.
Prototype
Make ideas tangible
The fun part starts here! Once you have your chosen idea, it’s time to bring it to life. We’ll use craft materials to build a visual prototype so you can explain your idea to others, and visualise it in the real world.
Storytell
Sell your ideas to stakeholders
The final stage in our Design Thinking journey is storytelling. Storytelling is all about engaging your audience in an emotional and compelling way. yia! mentors will help you to develop your story if you need to, but by now you should have a really good understanding of the problems your idea helps to solve.
Empathise
Gather information about your chosen problem
The first stage in the Design Thinking process is to discover what people really need. The empathy stage is about gathering data from customer interviews and existing research. Your mission is to deeply understand the customer and uncover unmet needs.
Ideate
Generate ideas using your insights
Now it’s time to get into problem-solving mode! Generate lots of ideas here, no idea is too big or small. Stretch your brain to go beyond the obvious and find the best outcome for your future customer.
Test
Share your ideas with your team and mentors
It’s time to present your ideas to the group to get feedback. You might need some resilience here! Be open to changing your ideas when you receive feedback., whether it’s good or constructive.
Celebrate!
Once you have developed your ideas, they’ll be sent to our expert judges. The yia! celebration is always a highlight and is the reward for all your hard work!
Celebrate your fellow future innovators alongside parents, guardians, teachers, our sponsors, and organisers - you deserve it!