Protothinking for Social Projects
Learn a guided prototyping method with digital tools to create or enhance social projects, driving positive community impact from the ground up.
Learn a guided prototyping method with digital tools to create or enhance social projects, driving positive community impact from the ground up.
Protothinking® for social projects offers both a conceptual framework and practical methodology for bringing social initiatives to life. This comprehensive approach provides design tools that enable you to facilitate innovation processes with four key action areas: definition, empathy, experimentation, and validation. The course teaches you to consolidate social-focused strategies that improve quality of life in specific territories while inspiring others to pursue similar initiatives. You'll learn to assemble a team, identify territorial challenges, master facilitation techniques, generate strategies, develop and evaluate prototypes, find partners, and learn from the entire process. Protothinking® is built on core principles: viewing all social products as evolving prototypes rather than final versions, evaluating user perception from multiple perspectives, questioning assumptions, and physically transforming environments to discover new strategies. This hands-on approach empowers you to create meaningful local changes based on global innovation principles.
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What you'll learn
Establish a structured route to consolidate social-focused strategies
Facilitate design processes for social projects and lead activities in various collaborative settings
Apply rapid prototyping design techniques to transform ideas into action
Utilize definition, empathy, exploration and validation tools for innovation strategies
Assemble effective social projects by understanding territories and organizing teams
Prototype and validate social strategies while maintaining flexibility for continuous improvement
Skills you'll gain
This course includes:
PreRecorded video
Graded assignments, exams
Access on Mobile, Tablet, Desktop
Limited Access access
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There are 4 modules in this course
This course introduces Protothinking®, a comprehensive methodology for developing social innovation projects through rapid prototyping. Students learn to establish routes for consolidating social-focused strategies that improve community wellbeing while inspiring others. The curriculum covers team assembly, territorial challenge identification, facilitation techniques, strategy generation, prototype development and validation, partnership building, and continuous learning. The Protothinking® approach emphasizes that all social initiatives are evolving prototypes rather than final versions, requiring ongoing refinement based on user feedback and changing conditions. Students master tools for definition, empathy, exploration, and validation while developing leadership skills for facilitating design processes in various contexts. The course provides practical techniques for rapid prototyping that transform ideas into action, equipping participants with a toolkit including brief creation, 5W1H framework, empathy mapping, shadowing, Six Thinking Hats, SCAMPER, storyboarding, visual thinking, and NUF evaluation.
Innovación es: prototipar el futuro
Module 1
Ensambla tu proyecto social
Module 2
Prototipa y transforma
Module 3
Valida las estrategias de tu proyecto
Module 4
Fee Structure
Payment options
Financial Aid
Instructor
1 Course
Innovator, Author, and Thought Leader in Design Thinking
Nel Martínez is a graphic designer and innovation expert with a Master's in Innovation Management from the University of Aveiro in Portugal. A passionate advocate of design as a multidisciplinary tool for change, he is the author of several influential books including Protothinking® – Pensamiento de Diseño en Acción, Diseño de confianza, and Redondeando una idea. Nel is also a co-founder of the Ibero-American Innovation Network (2013), and his academic work includes applying treemaps to visualize the European Innovation Scoreboard. On edX, he teaches innovative courses like Protothinking® para proyectos sociales and Diseño de prototipos digitales para proyectos sociales, empowering learners to use design as a driver for social impact.
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