ME310 DESIGN INNOVATION Exclusive Masters in Strategic Design
Our ambition is to turn our ideas into reality. Véronique Hillen, dean of Paris d.school In the course of a full-time academic year, three multidisciplinary teams of four students each, located at d.school and in an institution belonging to the international network headed by Stanford University (including HPI Potsdam in Germany and Aalto University s Design Factory in Finland), innovate from a realworld brief, with high strategic stakes, brought by an industrial partner and entailing the reinvention of a product/ service in a potential growth market. The team of four students, from all disciplines (engineering in all its forms, design, business, political science...) and all countries (international recruitment for the team in Paris) will adopt an exploratory mindset. In the spirit of Silicon Valley and design thinking, our motto is aim straight to strike hard. If we want to be relevant in our innovation, our aim needs to focus on those we are innovating for, using the tools of experiential ethnography and prototyping. Then strike hard with the partner, gain in impact, through well-articulated operations and processes. We offer you the opportunity to go beyond the paper project and have a real impact on major societal, industrial and environmental issues. Since 2009, our students have reinvented a bathroom for seniors (Lapeyre/Saint Gobain), a camera for the fire services (Thales), a new business model for the treatment of cancer by proton therapy (Amplitude Technologies), and more. You too will be able to reinvent an industry, by developing a proposal that users want, is technologically feasible and viable for the project partner, with the aim of generating maximum real-world impact!
ROOTS As an entity dedicated to innovation, d.school Paris bases its pedagogy on design thinking, an approach that was born and put down its theoretical roots at Stanford University in California. This concept is simultaneously a discipline, a process and a culture, a combination that has led to the reinvention of product and service design. Its aim? To find solutions that make sense for individuals, are technically feasible and economically viable, as summed up by Tim Brown, president of the IDEO design agency.
GOALS The objective of d.school Paris is to educate tomorrow s innovation leaders, whether entrepreneurs or project leaders in big companies. The culture of design thinking is acquired through a practical approach to pedagogy, the realization of an idea through a 3-stage design cycle. The first stage is inspiration, where the intention is filtered through the screen of the needs, dreams and constraints of potential users; the second is ideation, which gives shape to the ideas through fast prototyping, to enrich the experience through two-way interaction with users; and finally implementation, which converts the imaginative response into reality through storytelling, a pilot, and the generation of operations within the business model.
RESOURCES This strategic design degree is a full-time university program running over the academic year from the end of September to the end of June. The d.school is located in the Coriolis building on the Cité Descartes campus: 300 m² of spaces dedicated to creative design and innovation. Each team has a dedicated budget to cover its exploration and prototyping activities, around a project developed with an industrial partner. The program includes two trips to the Stanford University d.school and San Francisco, where participants can discover, explore and immerse themselves in the Silicon Valley mindset and its community of entrepreneurs and innovators.
DESIGN THINKING: AN EFFECTIVE CULTURE OF EXPLORATION Engineers, architects, designers, urban planners, political science graduates... form multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams around a design project developed with an industrial partner. They operate within a complex ecosystem of actors of very different kinds (target users, sectoral experts, multiple interlocutors within the partner company, suppliers...) to meet the challenge of creative design. This local multidisciplinarity within the school has its parallel in international cooperation, since each team works remotely in daily interaction with students at a university belonging to Stanford s international network. A working method that presupposes a strong capacity for initiative, responsibility... and empathy.
SHARING THE EXPERIENCE Pierre Valade ME310 2009-2010 Engineer École des Ponts ParisTech, Founder of Sunrise mobile app «To discover on the ME310 program that the intuitions I had about product design and innovation had been theorized and formalized in the US impressed me very much. Being an entrepreneur and being able to draw on the ME310 program to understand how to build innovative projects that fulfil needs, are simple to use and become successful, all this meets the definition of what we learned at the d.school. The best argument for deciding to pursue the ME310 program is to look at the achievements of the people who did it.» SARAH FATHALLAH ME310 2010-2011 Sciences Po Paris, Senior Design Strategist at SAP, Palo Alto «Hard to imagine better conditions for learning to innovate and create new products and services: multidisciplinary and multicultural teams, a trip to Silicon Valley, a budget for prototyping, continuing links with industrial firms, and 9 full-time month to make a real product. No more paper projects that never see the light of day, you now have a little under one year to get organized and design the finished prototype of one of tomorrow s products or services. ME310 is a perfect mix between creating a start-up and project management in an industrial firm, with only the good sides of both.» FÉlix Marquette ME310 2012-2013 Designer at Strate College, System Engineer at Valeo, Paris «Take a 300 m² loft containing 9 areas seasoned to your taste, from prototyping workshop to brainstorming rooms to kitchen, fold in a handful of students from the four corners of the globe, united by their desire to innovate. Add some ambitious projects, provided by the world s most innovative international companies, and a professional, dynamic and encouraging team. Together in an all-in-one atmosphere of electric creativity. That will give you a good idea of what you can expect at ME310. For even more flavor, sprinkle in some crazy challenges based on cardboard bicycles and serve hot during trips to Stanford. You will be left with a delicious and aromatic memory of the design thinking method.»
AN INTERNATIONAL NETWORK The setting up of d.school Paris in 2009 was part of an international movement initiated by the universities of Stanford (California) and Potsdam (Germany), and maintained by Finland s University of Aalto. Our school is a member of the international SUGAR network of universities offering design thinking courses or programs (sugar-network.org). Some of our international academic partners Aalto University Design Factory Important notice :
JOIN THE ADVENTURE! Coriolis, our building where the adventure takes place. Come and meet at Cité descartes campus or get in touch. (+33) 01 64 15 38 55 @ contact@dschool.fr Paris-est d.school at ecole des Ponts www.dschool.fr/me310 @Parisdschool d.school Paris at École des Ponts 6-8 avenue Blaise Pascal, 77420 Champs-sur-Marne