After many months of video-conferencing and planning, a new mentoring program for Boise State University Masters of Business Administration students will begin the first week of November. The mentoring program has both interdisciplinary and international collaboration. Students from Christy Suciu’s MBA 531 class will mentor Boise State senior design engineering students (taught by senior COEN instructor Lynn Caitlin) and Coventry University (England) entrepreneurship and design students in human-centered design using Design Thinking methods.
Organizations use Design Thinking for everything from designing a great new product or service to solving social challenges. This mentorship program will engage students with a new approach to solving business problems and creating new value by using human-centered ethnographic research methods.
One of the things that helped create this new mentoring partnership was Suciu’s and Caitlin’s involvement with Coventry University during the 24-hour Global Transformathon where they served as judge, keynote speaker and team mentors. Suciu and Caitlin worked with university teams from TARK University in Malaysia, Deakin University in Australia and Coventry University as they worked to solve one of four United Nations sustainable development goals.
“After the success of the Global Transformathon and the invaluable input from Boise State University faculty,” said Peter McLuskie, a member of the Coventry University faculty, “I’m really excited to be working with Christy and her colleagues again on our next teaching and learning adventure.”