Unleashing the power of a million innovative minds

Since its launch, Designathon Works has captivated the hearts and minds of thousands. Take, for instance, their annual flagship event, the Global Children’s Designathon (GCD). In only three years, this event has not only managed to spread to 18 cities, attracting kids from some 25 countries, it’s equipped them with the knowledge and tools to develop hundreds of ingenious inventions solving all sorts of problems.

This year’s water theme inspired 170 interventions focused on flooding, droughts, habitat endangerment, and pollution. Think about that for a second –– 170 prototypes just like Chris, Raza, Jean, Andrew, Nicholas, and Gabriela’s!

“If you look at the research we did across 18 cities, adults are consistently surprised at the level of knowledge, ideas, and engagement that children have with big world issues.” Yet, for Emer, today’s outmoded educational systems simply aren’t devoting the resources necessary to empower 2 billion school-age kids around the globe to solve social problems with creativity and empathy.

“If we continue to put children in a box that’s too small for their abilities, we’re going to have a very doomed society one day. We’d like to reframe the way the world sees children,” Emer tells me.

Rather than bombarding kids with lectures, facts, and standardized tests (which reinforce the idea that there’s only one correct answer to each problem we encounter), Designathon Works favors an approach where kids invent, build, and present self-devised solutions to social or environmental issues. In addition to the GCD, the Designathon methodology manifests in school programs, teacher trainings, and other bespoke organizational events.

Anne Sallaerts was going through the Executive Program in 2016 when she met Emer. Upon realizing that the two shared a common purpose, Emer decided to bring Anne into Designathon Works to serve as Managing Partner. At the time, Designathon was being run solely by Emer and her other business partner, Creative Director Ina Conkic.

“The whole idea of casting the right team –– that’s something I learned at THNK… Finding people with a shared mission allows you to move together, which obviously lets you achieve so much more,” says Emer.

Replacing the traditional one-way knowledge transfers found in most schools today, Emer, Anne, and the rest of their team gathered key insights from design thinking and the “Maker Education” curriculum before synthesizing a unique learning model which places critical thinking, collaboration, and hands-on creation at its core.

“We first share information about the challenge topics. After identifying the component problems and exposing the children to an array of unusual solutions, we invite them to think big… but that part seems very easy for them to do!”

By providing kids with a platform to discuss the future they’ll inhabit and a space to co-create the ideas that will potentially make it more prosperous and healthy for everyone, Designathon Works hopes to prepare the next generation of innovators and leaders.

When impact designers like Emer come to THNK, they often come with the intention to build up an initiative from scratch. “I knew I wanted to set up a program, but I didn’t know what the contours of it would look like. It was really nice for me to consider all kinds of different perspectives and work with people from different industries, to really help me move into a blank frame again,” she says.

In 2012, after completing the second module of her THNK journey, Emer compared the experience to Minecraft.

Based on data from last year’s GCD, children identified the key water-related issues for their own cities, but 50% decided to create solutions for issues that transcended local boundaries. Said one 9-year-old girl from Zagreb, “I love nature and want to help the nature and people of the world. It’s sad that some have everything, and some nothing.”

But this isn’t the only area where the kids’ instincts diverged from the mainstream of many adults. Armed with a keen ability to embrace the new, 78% of the kids were able to hone in on the root of the problem before arriving at imaginative (and often plausible) solutions that made use of new technologies in unusual combinations.

We may be a ways off from bringing kid-designed social interventions to the global community, but there are still plenty of lessons from Emer and Anne’s work worth highlighting in the here and now. By continuing to develop our understandings and analysis of children’s contributions in the world of design, we can foster a greater sense of their concerns and values, paving the way for them to eventually have a seat at the policy-making table, co-designing solutions to the great societal and environmental challenges of our time.