Design Thinking: user-centric innovation

As part of its academic partnerships policy, SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT has given students of the Industrial Engineering department of the Ecole des Ponts Paris Tech the following challenge: "Create a new generation of services for collective housing" using the Design Thinking method.

Creating value for people
Design Thinking: user-centric innovation

From October 2010 to June 2011, two teams of four students worked together on the problem of developing new products and services for the environment (water, waste, energy, air, etc.), focused on the needs of individuals living in a collective housing environment. These solutions should allow SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT to create value for people living in collective, social or condominium housing, set in the ecosystem of the neighbourhood and connected to the town facilities.

The students were supervised by experienced professors specialised in Design Thinking and by design and collective housing professionals, under the aegis of the SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT Innovation Department and the Strategy Department as well as the marketing teams of SITA France and Lyonnaise des Eaux.

Design Thinking: solution-based innovation

Design Thinking is a unique approach to innovation that uses the sensitivity, methods and tools of designers to achieve innovative results in businesses. Observing how people live and behave plays a key role.
To teach students how to approach innovation challenges, the Industrial Engineering department of the Ecole des Ponts Paris Tech has designed a special programme on radical innovation through Design Thinking. This programme comes under the "d.thinking Ponts ParisTech" label created by the Ecole des Ponts Paris Tech.

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