24 August 2019, a team from Ateneo de Naga University attended a Design Thinking Workshop together with three (3) teams coming from Bicol State College of Applied Sciences and Technology (BISCAST) at Museo Ni Jesse Robredo, Naga City. The students from AdNU were Eunice M. Turiano (BS Environmental Management), Joshua Ismael S. Puto (AB Political Science), Kenneth Marvin M. Adaque (BS Nursing), Dianne Mae P. Fabiano (BS Information Technology), and Von Karlo B. Verdadero (BS Civil Engineering).
The Design Thinking Workshop (DTW) aims to teach participants the basic framework, methodology, and toolkit of Design Thinking, a framework used to collaborate, align teams and form intent to solve various problems of a defined stakeholder. The teams are expected to present their idea and its prototype to the City Government of Naga and prospective users in the city by October 2019. The Naga City LGU will select from among the presenters the best idea/s which will then represent the city on November 2019 in Manila for the national level competition at the Top Leaders Forum. Prospective winners at the national level will have the chance to be funded by the private business sectors or organizations to develop and implement the most innovative idea.
The workshop was facilitated by people coming from the International Business Machines (IBM) and Asia Pacific College and co-facilitated by Ateneo de Naga University and City Government of Naga. The activity is part of the Young Leaders for Resilience Program of the National Resilience Council (NRC) to engage the youth in co-creating solutions that will address various resilience challenges faced by the partner local government units of the NRC. The AdNU students are being mentored by the Institute for Environmental Conservation and Research (INECAR).
The National Resilience Council (NRC) is a science and technology-based public-private partnership pursuing a disaster and the climate-resilient Philippines. It aims to build a resilient Philippines through science and technology-based public-private partnerships, enhance internal capacities of local government units (LGUs) with evidence-informed risk governance, strengthen and sustain high-level collaboration between national government agencies and industry, and implement the resilience program with a core group of LGUs. At the local level, the Ateneo de Naga University is a member of the Naga City Resilience Council.
by Jay P. Abawag
