The Innovation Certificate
Just imagine, a bunch of us industry analysts at Oracle for updates on Oracle's vision and direction, A.I. strategy, data and design innovations, healthcare advancements, and overall digital innovation. It's all impressive, as you would expect. But we have never perked up more than we did listening to d.tech students changing the way we think about solving problems to make the future better. They're YOUNG, they're BRILLIANT, they have ACCESS to what they need, they're HUNGRY, and they're literally going to change the world.
—Oracle Industry Analyst Attendee 2024
Future Forward Learning
In 2019, we began working with the Stanford Center for Assessment Learning and Equity to define what it means to be a creative, self-directed leader. After doing a deep dive in these areas, we developed a program to help students build these important skills. We began implementing this program with our students at Design Tech @ Oracle, with great success. Today, our work with Stanford serves as the foundation of our innovation program, which is now available to students anywhere in the world.
Keep scrolling through this page and you’ll find plenty of amazing outcomes from our program. Our students report learning a host of specific skills and mindsets that are essential to their current and future success. These include technical skills like design, finance and data analysis; durable skills like creativity, empathy, and persistence; and mindsets like adaptability, flexibility and self-awareness. Put all of these together and you have the makings of a creative, confident, self-directed leader. We know that building self-direction, creativity and leadership is not easy and actually can be pretty frustrating. But wow, when you do it, you open up limitless opportunities for yourself.
What do our students say?
“The design thinking process has proven to be a very powerful thought process that constantly makes me think about how I can better my surroundings. I am currently a pre-med student, … and am grateful for my background in design thinking because it has ingrained within me the ability to think outside of the traditional framework of academia and to think creatively about how I can take what I’ve learned to not just solve problems on a test, but more importantly, solve problems in my community….I’m so grateful that d.tech taught me design thinking so early on, as it has become an invaluable mindset that has shown me that I have the power to make a difference at any stage of life.”
-Program alumni and student at Northwestern University
What do the industry and academic experts say?
100% of our review panel agreed that the standards of the program represent important elements of solving design problems in college level work and industry?
Or as they said so beautifully:
“These skills are often cultivated through professional work experiences rather than in traditional academic settings, so if a student demonstrated these skills they would be seen as a valuable candidate in work settings that are nimble and deal with ambiguous design challenges”.
Design Industry Professional
“This level of analysis by a high school graduate would be a distinguishing characteristic in applying to highly selective colleges and universities. Few existing co-curricular/extracurricular offer this kind of challenge and positive outcome."
Former Dean of College of Admissions at a highly selective college
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