On 28 November 2017 a workshop as part of the European Erasmus + KA2 project „DigiThink: Design thinking for digital innovation“ took place at the Faculty of Central European Studies Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. It was organized by the Institute of Teacher Education (RNDr. Štefan Balla, PhD., Ing. Rastislav Žitný, PhD., Mgr. Tibor Szabó, PhD.) and the Department of Tourism (PhDr. Zuzana Palenčíková, PhD., Ing. Terézia Repáňová, PhD. and Mgr. Zuzana Sándorová, PhD.).

One of the key challenges of recent times is the preparation of young people for their future entrepreneurship in conditions of a digital era. The development of the necessary digital skills in higher education, especially within business and economy-oriented study programmes is a challenge for both the institutions and their students. The aim of the project DigiThink is, therefore, to foster these competences of the mentioned target groups through the method of design thinking, i.e. the acquisition of digital skills using ICT, open educational resources and interdisciplinary approach.

Design thinking is a relatively new method, which was developed in the USA by a design consulting firm called IDEO specialised in innovation and problem-solving at the end of 1990s.  This method helps entrepreneurs and companies to identify costumers’ needs in order to create such solutions, (i.e. services and products), that will likely be bought.

The part of the project DigiThink are also courses offering the acquisition of the method of design thinking for future lecturers as well as students. The role of the lecturers is to ensure the acquisition of the method in question by the students while developing their creativity, empathy, ethics, social value orientation and the sense of social responsibility. The project enables the included organisations from Bulgaria, Slovakia, Spain and Italy to develop adaptive and personalized learning, which in case of a successful implementation can lead to the foundation of digital companies by the student teams. The target groups of the projects are both university and secondary school students of study programmes in engineering and economics, as well as teachers teaching at institutions with such specialisations.

At the Faculty of Central European Studies the target group primarily consists of tourism undergraduates, who within the workshop devoted to the creation of new tourism products had the opportunity to test the innovative method of design thinking. Students were within the selection process divided into three teams, whose task was to come up with new ideas in order to create a new product (a prototype), that would solve the problem of a selected segment of tourists coming to Nitra. The language of the workshop was English.

Each team consisted of five students and a teacher working at the Department of Tourism. The role of the mentor was to lead the students through the four stages of design thinking, as follows: 1. Emphatise, 2. Define, 3. Ideate and 4. Prototype. The last phase, before product launch, is testing; however, it could not be realized due to the special conditions of the workshop. In order to concretize the technical and constructional specifics of the prototypes, students could choose from a wide range of creative tools, such as coloured paper, pencils, felt-tip pens, LEGO pieces, cartons, plastic glasses, rubber bend, wire, plasticine, etc. The outcomes of the workshop were three new prototypes of future products, which have the potential to address the given segment of the tourists coming to Nitra. The team of the first-year students came up with an innovative equipment for wheelchair users in thermal spas and swimming pools, while the second-year students created a prototype of hoverboard serving especially for elderly people’s sightseeing activities. The third group consisting of the third-year undergraduates came up with the idea of a playful mobile application with comprehensive information for the cultural visitors of Nitra about the historical and the archaeological memorabilia connected with the life and work of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Nitra.

Based on the mentioned outcomes of the workshop, we can assume that testing of the method of design thinking at the Faculty of Central European Studies Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra was successful and, therefore, it will be implemented in selected courses of the Regional Tourism study programme. A positive feedback was also given by the students included in the workshop, who claimed that they had liked this creative way of problem-solving and would welcome it in other business courses as well.

Mgr. Zuzana Sándorová, PhD., PhDr. Zuzana Palenčíková, PhD. and Ing. Terézia Repáňová, PhD.

Mentors of the workshop