Design Thinking with Pradeep Parajuli

As one of the events of the Entrepreneurship Week in The Better You Series, Embark College organized an inspirational session that remained in the memory of all the participants- Design Thinking: An interactive session with Pradeep Parajuli. This June 19th session was a place of curiosity, creativity, and chat! His charismatic personality and extensive experience in entrepreneurial innovation characterized the group in an exhilarating journey towards discovering the human-centered problem-solving model known as design thinking that is changing the face of industries across the globe.

Even at the outset, we could see this was not to be a lecture by the ordinary rules. The question Parajuli asked was simple but deceptively simple; it was at least a deceptively simple question to pose the question. The answer was not so simple, as it went: What problem do you want someone to solve for you today? This one prompt created a place of exposure, exploration, and evaluation. Students, aspiring entrepreneurs, and working professionals were instantly hooked and provoked to start thinking out of the box of business models when students were asked to start with human needs and draw the model.

In essence, design thinking involves empathy. It is important to understand people, and Parajuli underlined the importance of using human understanding to create the most powerful innovations without focusing on processes or data. He was the first to present the five building blocks of design thinking: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. However, rather than simple explanations of these steps, he has made them accessible by telling interesting stories and involving us in hands-on conversations. The session encouraged anyone to stop considering solutions but consider problems or reformulate their minds to perceive challenges in a humanistic sense.

The story that impressed me during the session was that of a company startup where new arrangements that provide market information to small farmers were redesigned. Rather than developing an alluring app immediately, the individuals started by going out to rural neighborhoods and hearing what farmers do day in and day out. According to Parajuli, that understanding is what made the solution sustainable, not made on a desk, but in real life. Readers of this story were touched by it and started to dwell upon the possibility of how their idea could be adjusted to get closer to the community and understand their needs.

During the session, Parajuli was busting the commonplace understanding of entrepreneurship. Referring to disruption, he noted that chronicling of technology was not the only aspect of innovation where usefulness and connectivity were important. He encouraged them to quit looking at failure as a thing to be terrified of. Iteration is the recipe of success in design thinking, and any prototype, however crude, is a step to something greater.

The essence of the session was interactive exercises. The participants were matched in pairs to train their active listening skills to recognize needs in each other’s lives and then brainstorm on it to come up with a solution. This experience made the participants realise how intermittently we base our conclusions without sincerely listening to the problem. Most of them said that even a brief exercise made them different in terms of how they treat cooperation nowadays, he/she try to listen first without wanting to correct things instantaneously.

Through the session, it was seen that design thinking is not just a process but rather a mindset. It educates openness, curiosity, and a comfort with ambiguity. It requires us to question assumptions and complexities and remain close to human connection.

The very room turned into a creative one. Concepts were being exchanged, ideas were being written, and attempting to start the line of thinking. The electricity was thick, and it was not only the electricity of people learning new things, but it was also of people starting to think in new ways about old problems. To most people in attendance, it was the first time they were introduced to a thinking model that does not require perfection but is ammunition for empathy and iteration.

Among the most effective lessons, there was the one when Parajuli mentioned, “Don’t love your solution. Be infatuated by the problem.” It was an eye-opener to many. It reinforced to the audience that what becomes the best of us as entrepreneurs, and in life, is keeping the mind of a curious, modest, and disciplined listener.

The question-and-answer time that followed was quite lively, and the questions varied from how to use design thinking in social impact projects to how to map this framework to the current systems of corporations. Parajuli answered every question straightforwardly and in-depth, proving that design thinking can be applied universally: it does not matter how big you are, how large the scale is, or what industry you are in. It is thinking and will.

Embark College was very instrumental in bringing a mood to the session. The atmosphere was open, comfortable, and suitable for a genuine conversation. The guides shared the space to individual thinking and collective vigor, where participants not only learn about design thinking, they do the thinking.

When the session ended, it became obvious that something had changed. The participants not only became more familiar with design thinking, but they also found their purpose again. To upcoming business people, it was a challenge to begin with people. To problem-solvers, it came as a reminder that empathy is a tactic. It turned out to be real evidence to people who remained in the room that the first step to innovation is not a genius idea and not even a smart idea, but to listen seriously.

Clarity, energy, and the ability to apply it to the real world. Pradeep Parajuli not only teaches about design thinking, but he also makes participants experience it. And by doing that, he sowed the seeds of conscious, human-driven innovation that could cast its wake much further than that day.