DESIGNING & FACILITATING WORKSHOPS

I have extensive experience with designing and facilitating major workshops for both academia and Fortune 100 corporations. I have executed major workshop engagements involving hundreds of participants a time that have led to the generation of thousands of quality ideas and solutions for my clients.

Innovation Fairs

Employee engagement was crucial while embedding innovation capabilities at a major global steel producer. During the initiative, our core team interacted with over a thousand employees during two separate innovation fairs. Thousands of useful ideas where generated that developed into key opportunity areas for the client. More detailed ideation workshops were conducted in parallel that further developed the ideas into viable business solutions providing differentiated long-term customer value.

Innovation workshop in session: a large group of participants gathered around a facilitator at a whiteboard, with idea maps and notes pinned to the walls behind them. — A workshop in full swing…participants gathered around the facilitator, walls already filling with ideas and connections.

Seoul FabLab

I developed and conducted a Design Thinking + Making Workshop on the ground in Seoul, Korea. It was a successful hands-on maker workshop.

Ink-stained hands resting on a workbench scattered with leather pieces, straps, and a hand-made zippered pouch, the marks of hands-on making. — Making is thinking…hands at the bench during the Design Thinking + Making Workshop.

Chicago skyline at dusk in winter, viewed from a high vantage point with snow-covered Lincoln Park in the foreground and the city’s towers glowing in the last light. — Seoul FabLab was conceived and built here…a Chicago winter sunrise, the city that shaped the design thinking practice behind the workshop.

Illinois Institute of Technology & Northwestern

As a design professor for the IPRO Program at IIT and the Design Thinking and Communication Program at Northwestern University, I have guided hundreds of students through hands-on design challenges. As part of the curriculum, student teams compete in IPRO Day for awards and scholarships. My teams have won awards.