Category Archives: General

Peer to Peer Learning – Open Ears

General, Uncategorized, , ,

2016 saw the launch of the University of Dundee’s Global Health Challenge, and in 2017 as part of the Induction we invited ‘Open Ears’ to present their project and its process.

Open Ears were voted the winners of 2016 by all of the GHC 2016 participants, rather than a small panel of “expert judges”. In this way the decision was unanimous and wholesomely democratic.

Here is their final idea as captured in a short 8 minute film, with a short Q&A session with some members of the team to help others with their future journey.

 

Let’s Create a Culture of Collaboration

Design and Innovation, General, News, Resources, , , , ,
“Create a Collaborative Mind-set”

– IDEO

As GHC17 problem solvers, you’ve been tasked in identifying insights and opportunities to bring about positive change for real people experiencing very real and complex issues. Key to the success of this will be teamwork.

Let’s look to IDEO co-founder David Kelly for some advice whilst working towards innovation as multidisciplinary teams:

  1. Every team member should be given the same amount of respect
  2. Take advantage of individual skill sets: throw egos out the window
  3. Embrace the opportunity afforded by bringing together people with different backgrounds and expertise – you’ll have more resources, insight, and experience to draw from

In other words, let’s create a culture of collaboration and recognise the strengths afforded to your teams brought by the various backgrounds and fields of your members. The next five weeks are yours to explore, discover and ideate and embracing the opportunity to do this together will really make your project sing.

Building on this thinking and echoing some of the advice shared by GHC16 winners Open Ears in our induction session, here are some final top tips from your GHC facilitators for successful teamwork:

  • COMMUNICATE: Establish and use somewhere central, like Facebook or the GHC webmail platform to communicate with your group. Share where you’re at and discuss progress in between meetings.
  • BE MINDFUL of the commitment you have made to the team. It is good professional practice to give this your full attention – if meetings are arranged, attend them. 
  • PROJECT PLAN & DELEGATE: Compile a task list – who does what and when?
  • PREPARE for your final presentation. Make sure every team member is clear on their role within the presentation and collect and compile visuals to communicate your project well.

Global Health Challenge 2017 is Go!

General, News, , , , ,

Day one of 2017’s Global Health Challenge kicked off with vim and vigour this week as students, sponsors and staff considered challenges from eight innovative local organisations; The Archie Foundation; Deaf Links; Dundee International Women’s Centre; Faith in Community; Hearing Voices Network Dundee; PAMIS; Parkinson’s UK; and NHS Tayside Primary Care Services. Applicants from across the University’s nine schools gathered to discover, question and ruminate eight impactful challenges about health and wellbeing. Tasked with tackling issues such as awareness, stigma, and understanding, these challenges invite this year’s problem solvers to focus on being empathic and ‘walk for a little in someone else’s shoes’ to create products or tools, spaces or services that promote, support and enable healthier futures.

Working in DUSA’s Air Bar for the afternoon, the fantastic Linsay Duncan led our ice-breaker and energised us with something a little different; Northern Soul Dancing! We learned how to jump and spin and to ‘Keep on, keeping on’; valuable training in going forward over the next five weeks of the GHC as we strive to be agile, focused and dedicated in addressing the challenges posed.

Invigorated from dancing, we then heard from the eight project sponsors as they pitched and framed challenges inspired by the work they do and the real people they work with. Coming together in a BarCamp style we worked on being present, questioning our experts, contributing to discussion and generating questions and key themes to begin to explore each challenge. We worked quickly as students’ self-selected four challenges to investigate, capturing key words, themes and questions on post-its, which were then clustered together to build a picture of the problems faced. We then took some time to reflect and recap before students identified and signed up to the challenges they will work on for the duration of the GHC. The final formed groups consist of around seven members who represent various disciplines from across the University including; Art and Design, Dentistry, Education and Social Work, Humanities, Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Life Sciences, Science and Engineering and Social Sciences. These groups worked with their project sponsors to curate a set of initial questions and inquiries to drive their thinking over the next week, the aim being to begin to develop understanding of their subject area, of their group mates and of how they will work together during this creative process.

We then heard from last year’s GHC winners, Open Ears, who created a toolkit that aims to educate and raise awareness of the everyday issues experienced by people who are hard of hearing. Team members Alice, Charlie and Simran shared lessons learned and advice with this year’s cohort including; Visit your partner organisations as soon as possible to better inform understanding and collaborate with experts; Outline weekly goals and make the most of your Wednesday afternoon GHC sessions together; Communicate in between meetings using tools like Facebook; and Plan for your final presentations early as you want this to fully represent your hard work.

To close, Alice of Open Ears, shared the inspiring evolution of the team’s project since winning GHC16. Following their final presentation, Open Ears secured funding to further develop their prototype working with NHS Tayside and Deaf Hub. Through this Alice has successfully iterated the Open Ears toolkit and attained a Top 5 position in Converge Challenge 2017. This experience has not only helped to develop the toolkit to the benefit of its’ future users but also afforded Alice the opportunity to undertake entrepreneurial training and showcase the toolkit to a wider audience. There is much to be learned from Alice and her fellow Open Ears members. See Alice’s blog for more of this story: http://www.alicehorton.co.uk/

And on this particular high note, the Induction session wrapped up leaving the teams armed with inspiration and energy for their first week of GHC17.

A visual snapshot of the session:

Good to See You – Welcome to GHC!

General, , , , , ,

Hello!

Welcome everyone to Global Health Challenge!

It is a delight to welcome you. My name is Louise and I am one of a large team across the University who have joined together to design and make happen the Global Health Challenge. You’ll get to meet and work with the team as the afternoon and challenge progresses.

First, let me tell you a little bit about Global Health Challenge.

Global Health Challenge is a glimpse of the future; it’s a change agent with a concern about doing things differently. It is about challenging the norm. We’re here to raise the game, to raise your game, and ours. We’re doing that by pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone, to work in new ways and with people we’ve not worked with before. Everything about this initiative is voluntary, and that is what makes it such a compelling story. We’re here to do some good.

Let me share with you an interesting fact, the world population is forecast to increase by two-thirds in the 21st Century. Did you know that? For me it’s the call to action that has impacted most. Let me tell you why. In the 19th Century there were 1 billion people on the planet. In 2017 there are just over 7.6 billion, and by the end of the 21st century it is expected to be over 12 million. This is an exorbitantly high rate of growth with an extra 50 million people added to the Earth’s population, each year.

How does this connect to the Global Health Challenge? Every single person on the planet requires help with their health. This population scenario requires us – you and I – to very carefully, sensitively yet radically rethink ‘normal’.

What I’m saying is, Global Health Challenge has an entrepreneurial character – it’s not about teaching you to become an entrepreneur – but you could use it to help with that, if you wish.

Our commitment to you is to help you stand out from the crowd, to afford you opportunities to develop discovery, to think, be enterprising, to let you fail and get things wrong, and to work with you to understand how to fix it. It’s also to respectfully tell you to get over yourself if one of your ideas isn’t taken up by the team, because teamwork is what is needed. We’re committed to building your agility, resilience and your capacity to empathise with the world around you. Why? So that, should you chose to, you may lead, manage, innovate, and excel in your future professional worlds. These skills enhance the likelihood that you will identify and capture the right opportunity at the right time for the right reason.

Every single person in this space is formidable. You have something unique and very special to bring to the challenge we are about to embark upon.  We really want you to do something great! We will do everything we can to help facilitate your journey.

Enjoy!

 

With thanks to Professor Heidi Neck, Babson College USA, for inspiring this welcome.

All set for Global Health Challenge 2017

General, News

Following the success of the 2016 Global Health Challenge (GHC) we’re ready to get started with a set of new challenges for GHC17.  It’s fair to say we were overwhelmed by the creativity, energy and inspiration of our students to tackle the six challenges set last year and we’re  excited to see how this year’s challenge projects develop.

We’re delighted to see some of last year’s project sponsors, Deaf Links, Hearing Voices and PAMIS join us again with a fresh set of challenges.  It’s also great to welcome five new project sponsors, the Archie Foundation, Dundee International Women’s Centre, Faith in Community, Parkinson’s UK and NHS Tayside Primary Care Services.  With eight challenges this year there’s an opportunity for more students take part.

GHC17 kicks off on 18 October when our project sponsors will present their challenges to our students.  Following the short challenge pitches, students will get an opportunity to dig a little deeper into each of them and outline the key questions that relate to them.  They’ll then get an opportunity to see the outputs of each groups’ discussions before deciding which challenge they want to work on.  Once the teams have formed and started to outline the first steps of their projects they’ll get the chance to hear from one of GHC16’s teams, Open Ears.  Working with the Deaf Hub, Open Ears went on to develop a practical simulation kit to be used as a part of basic face-to-face awareness training with medical and frontline staff across a wide range of services.  We’ll be posting more about Open Ears in the next few days.

We’ll be posting an update following our launch event tomorrow and further updates over the next five weeks of the the GHC17. In the meantime to find out more about the GHC17 challenges browse the links on our 2017 challenges page.

 

Thinking Differently

General, , ,

thinking differntly quote Einstein quote

The pressing global health challenges we face today demand that we think differently, and the University of Dundee’s Global Health Challenge initiative is fuelled by this exigency, this need. Indeed, it’s one of the reasons why a process of knowledge exchange – through ambitious interdisciplinary workings – is adopted as the means of exploring new routes to meaningful innovation.

The project culminates in a series of Pecha Kucha presentations given by each of the teams, showcasing their process and idea(s) for making a change and having an impact. The projects are judged against six criteria* and these criteria are to be addressed by each team within their final Pecha Kucha presentations:

  1. Social and Environmental Benefit
    How does your design benefit society and/or the environment?
  1. Research and Insights
    How did you investigate this issue? What were your key insights?
  1. Design Thinking
    How did your research and insights inform your solution? 
How did you develop,
    test, iterate and refine your concept? 
Demonstrate the journey you’ve been
    through to the end result
  1. Commercial Awareness
    Does your journey make sense from a financial point of view?
    What is the competitive environment your solution would sit within?
  1. Execution
    We are looking for a design that is pleasing and looks and feels well-resolve,
    with consideration given to its sustainability
  1. Magic
    We are looking for a bit of ‘magic’ – a surprising or lateral design solution
    that delights

think different

‘What is Pecha Kucha 20×20?’

PechaKucha 20×20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images advance automatically and you talk along to the images.

Powerpoint is advised as it is easy to set-up where the images advance automatically.

Preparation is key and rehearsals are necessary.

Further Information about Pecha Kucha and examples of them, can be found at: http://www.pechakucha.org/

timetothinkdifferently

*The Judging Criteria is guided and inspired by ambitious competitions and projects, and specifically we are adopting the RSA Design Briefs criteria.

 

Using Change Cards to Consider Your Challenge

Design and Innovation, General, , ,

In a previous post we shared some advice and links to helpful resources on how to go out about framing the challenge your team is working on.  Once you’ve done this you might  find it useful to start to look at your challenge from different perspectives and one way you can do this is to use a set of change cards like the ones shared below developed by the Policy Lab.  These change cards are framed around six categories and you can use them to collectively explore your challenge further and to develop and deliver your project.  As you work through them they might inspire your team to frame some other questions and create your own change cards that can help shape and inform how you respond to the challenge you are addressing.  As you work through these cards you’ll find they get you thinking about how these challenges might be addressed in other locations, how different groups might approach the challenge and consider how you can be resourceful.

 

This second presentation from the Policy Lab gives an overview of the methods it adopts in its work with civil servants and others to help encourage more open and innovative strategies to developing policy and tackling different issues and challenges.    The Policy Lab makes effective use of user centred design-based approaches  to innovate and understand the problems individuals face and address these problems.  You’ll notice that the presentation talks about challenge setting, something we’re encouraging you to do by framing your challenge.  Another important concept presented here, which is relevant to all the challenges, is to consider and define different personas for the individuals affected by the problem you’re addressing.  This process helps you to build empathy with the people your project will be helping and to start you thinking about the journeys people take as they interact with different services and identify where things could be improved.

Framing the Challenge

Design and Innovation, General

This first week is about exploring and one of the first tasks is to frame your team’s challenge. A number of questions were created during last week’s Barcamp which should help you to do this. We encourage all of the teams to build on this work, to explore more, conduct further research and continue engaging in mindful conversation with your partner organisation and facilitators.

We know that framing a challenge can be tough but we also know, that when it’s done right, it can inspire everyone who is involved to thoroughly search for creative solutions. Here are some resources to help you think about framing your challenge:

IDEO.ORG DesignKit: Frame Your Design Challenge
Available at: http://www.designkit.org/methods/60
Accessed 23 October 2016.

VanGundy, A. B. (2005) The Care and Framing of Strategic Innovation Challenges.
Available at: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/sgc1/faculty/business-project-management/documents/VanGundyFrameInnov.pdf
Accessed: 23 October 2016.

Welcome to the Global Health Challenge

General

Welcome to the University of Dundee Global Health Challenge (GHC). Over at 5-week period (18th October – 15th November 2017)  we will be running our first set of GHC projects as students from across our academic schools come together to consider and address seven local health related challenges.  We kick off the GHC17 on Wednesday 18th October by introducing our challenge sponsors and our seven challenges which touch on ageing and social isolation, deafness, learning disabilities, homelessness, mental health and refugees.

We’ll be updating the blog over the next 6 weeks with updates on our kick-off session and the development of our student led projects.

Click here to apply for this year’s Global Health Challenge.