Design for social innovation is a seminar that traces the history and application of design methods to solving social problems. The course weaves together themes from design, public policy, business, technology, social science, public service, international relations and current events. The course examines examples of successful and failed social innovations from local, regional, national and international contexts.

Students will learn the role of governments, technology, funding, infrastructure, mindset, emotion, and cultural factors in addressing problems in the social sector. The course is grounded in practice and theory, and aims to provide students with the capacity to critically understand and frame social sector issues into design projects.

This course provides an overview of design methods related to social innovation–engaging with communities, problem framing, facilitating co-design workshops, ideation and concept generation, prototyping, implementation, and evaluation.

In the pages below, you can explore past student work from previous years of this course.