Impact Week, Students and Coaches

By: Theresa Igata

With about 140 students from University of Lagos, UNILAG, participating  in the second annual Impact Week in Nigeria, consisting of a four-day training course in Design Thinking organised by Lufthansa, this year’s winner of the 2018 Impact Week in Nigeria in partnership with University of Lagos (UNILAG) focuses on improving the relationship between technicians and customers.

The winning student designed a simple platform to bring together technicians and households, to solve the problem of unreliable technicians.

Participating students were supported by a coaching team from Lufthansa colleagues, external Design Thinking Senior Coaches and local professors. Prior to the students’ Impact Week, was a three-day course run by nine international design thinking coaches to train 48 junior coaches; among them, UNILAG lecturers as well as international Lufthansa Group staff.

Through team work, the students developed ideas and prototypes around Health & Environment, Transportation, Techno-preneurship, Urban Agriculture, Tourism, Energy, Commercial Finance and Education.

Other participating teams came up with ideas on Apps for waste management, transportation and fund raising, others include: making solar technique affordable for households by introducing micro financing models and payments via gradual installment based on block chain, hands-on solutions for onsite waste management, alternate usage of solar power or advocacy educational programs.

According to Claudia Rautenberg, Head of Cultural Transformation at Lufthansa Group, “The Impact Week has  double benefit, to foster innovation and sustainable entrepreneurship in the countries where it is being offered, while at the same time Lufthansa Group employees are being further trained.

“Our employees on the other hand can and should then bring the Design Thinking method into their companies and day-to-day work. They will help us push forward with innovation processes and make our work more agile and customer-centric at the same time,” Claudia Rautenberg said.