Led by a team from the innovative design firm IDEO, this was an interactive workshop with the participants doing much of the work.  IDEO CEO Tim Brown gave a brief overview of Design Thinking and the goals behind it.  Design Thinking is a human centered approach to problem solving. The goals include creating impact via innovation, creating sustainability and having a social impact in the developing world. 
Design Thinking:
    - is inherently optimistic
    - requires one to try things (prototype)
    - relies on story-telling to discover opportunities
    - is an evolving process

The challenge - build empathy and identify opportunities inspired by the cultural context.

The participants were divided into teams and challenged to discover and recommend new initiatives in health and wellness for the Skoll Foundation.  Each team member assumed the role of either: child advocate, women's advocate, an ayurvedic doctor, a medical doctor or a microfinance loan officer.    We watched a short video of interviews in an Indian village, viewing from the perspective of the role we were assuming.  IDEO researcher Jane Fulton Suri encouraged us to look for unintended uses, ways that people work around situations, surprises, and body language.

After the short briefing and film, the rest was up to us.  First we each shared our observations from the perspective of our role. I played the child advocate.  There was a lot of overlap in observations, but surprising differences as well. Next we were asked to identify three top themes, then narrow it down to one area to brainstorm solutions.  That was challenging and we ended up selecting our primary them at random.  We focussed on money/financing and the role that plays in village healthcare.  We brainstormed a large list of solutions - some practical, some crazy.  At the end each team reported out on their most impactful idea, wildest idea, and the idea that you wanted to learn more about.  The report out was great with solutions as crazy as doing a Bollywood style health education movie to giving cash bonus to doctors for caring for girl children.

The exercise was frenetic and fast paced, and I know we all wanted more time.  We ended with a discuss of how this tool can be used by social entrepreneurs.  

Highlights:
    -the empathy based approach inspires a larger range of ideas
    -empathy can be motivating
    -storytelling is important
    -users become part of the design team
    -depth is more important than breadth (usually done deeply with small groups of people)
    -empathy raises consciousness about what we don't know
    -human centered design includes the larger context