Smart Campus 2025 Innovation Workshop — INSPIRE Incubating Young Innovators through Design Thinking
In May 2025, Day 1 of the Smart Campus 2025 Innovation & Technology Workshop Series kicked off at the Google Hong Kong office, drawing over 50 students and teachers from various schools. As part of the teaching team, the INSPIRE team was honored to lead the Design Thinking and Proof of Concept (POC) segments — walking alongside the Smart Campus contestants as they took their first real steps into innovation.
Using Design Thinking to Turn Fragmented Ideas into Grounded Solutions
Contestants often arrive bursting with ideas — but those ideas tend to be fragmented and one-sided: "I want to build an app to help classmates revise," or "I want to solve the campus litter problem." The real question is: are these genuine user pain points, or just guesses the students made on their own? The heart of our design thinking segment was to move students away from guessing and toward a systematic approach for validating whether an idea truly fits and addresses the target user's real needs.
We told the students: a good solution doesn't start with "I think" — it starts with "what does the user actually experience?" And so we guided them through the first and most crucial stage of design thinking — Empathize.
Research, Empathize, Observe: Starting from the Real User
In our in-class workshops, students personally experienced several core design thinking tools, learning how to understand users systematically rather than by imagination:
1. User Research & Observation
We guided students into the user's real context — through interviews and observing everyday behavior — to uncover both what users say and what they leave unsaid. Students came to realize that genuine pain points often hide in details and behavior, not in survey answers.
2. User Journey Mapping
Students mapped out the user's complete experience from start to finish, marking every touchpoint and emotional high and low. Through this journey map, they could clearly see where users felt frustrated, confused, or inconvenienced — precisely the pain points most worth solving.
3. Empathy Mapping
We had students complete empathy maps, breaking down what the user "sees, hears, thinks, and does." This exercise pushed students out of their own perspective and into the user's shoes — avoiding the trap of "I assume the user needs this."
4. User Stories
Finally, students used the "As a ___, I want ___, so that ___" user-story format to translate observed needs into clear, testable problem statements — laying a solid foundation for the Proof of Concept (POC) stage.
Through this series of hands-on classroom exercises, students no longer simply "guessed" what users wanted — they learned to research, empathize, observe, and validate step by step using design thinking. When they looked back at their original fragmented ideas, many had an "aha" moment: the pain point they had assumed was not necessarily the user's real pain point. That awakening is exactly what allowed them to plan their projects far more solidly and convincingly.
From Validation to Building: Turning Concepts into Working Prototypes
Armed with solid user insights, students could push their ideas into a Proof of Concept (POC) with far greater confidence. Through the POE App Creator, they grasped the fundamentals of app creation and began to understand the key considerations behind interface design — moving from genuine user needs, step by step, to drawing and building the concept. This is exactly the capability we most hope to give students: the belief that a validated idea can truly be made real.
INSPIRE: Driving AI Social Innovation Incubation in the Community
For INSPIRE, this workshop was more than a class — it is part of our mission to drive social innovation incubation. We firmly believe that when young people are given the right methods and tools, they can use AI and technology to respond to real problems in their community.
From empathy to POC, the seed we hope to plant is not merely technical skill, but an "innovator's mindset" — helping students understand that true innovation begins with understanding people, and that it can start with themselves, in their schools, and in their communities. This is precisely the role INSPIRE AI strives to play: an incubator and companion for young innovators.
Our heartfelt thanks to the HKtag Secretariat for the thoughtful organization, to all the guest speakers for their professional insights, and to Google Hong Kong for providing such a comfortable venue. We look forward to creating change together with more young innovators — on campus and in the community!