Overview
This practical learning experience will introduce you to the Human-centred design (HCD) process and principles being used around the world to understand and solve complex social problems in our communities, such as poverty, crime, homelessness, climate change, unemployment and human trafficking.

Evolve with QUTeX
- Explain the steps of the HCD process to create innovative solutions to real-world challenges
- Describe strategies for understanding complex social problems
- Build rapid prototypes to make ideas come to life
- Describe ways to implement organisational learning and greater social impact
Who should participate?
This program is designed for the following participants:
- Directors, leaders and managers working in philanthropic and nonprofit organisations
- Leaders, researchers and policy advisors working with and for government
- Philanthropists wishing to fund more innovative ideas and solutions
- Social entrepreneurs and those working in social enterprise
- Business leaders in industry wishing to make a social impact
- Teams seeking to foster a problem-solving culture

Your expert facilitator Dr Ruth Knight
Dr Ruth Knight is a researcher and lecturer in nonprofit management and social enterprise at QUT’s Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies. Ruth has extensive experience in nonprofit leadership roles internationally and gained her PhD researching workplace culture, change readiness and organisational sustainability. Her special interests are nonprofit innovation, measuring social outcomes, developing high performing leaders and teams. Ruth is on a mission to advance quality research and practice in the sector to enable organisations to create effective strategies to improve their impact
Core concepts
To make progress in addressing complex problems, many leaders are rethinking how they understand problems, how to design innovative solutions, and how to measure their effectiveness. If you are a leader working in nonprofit, philanthropy, government or business looking for change, or would like to be better equipped to be an agile, ambitious and innovative problem-solver, this course is for you. You will learn how to apply the human-centred design process to challenges across organisations, communities, industries, sectors, and geographies to generate breakthrough ideas.
Details
Where and when
QUT Gardens Point, Brisbane QLD
Scheduling for 2021 is currently being finalised
Cost
Registration type | Cost | Registrations close |
---|---|---|
Early Bird registration | $TBC | 4 weeks before course start date |
Standard registration | $TBC | 2 days before course start date |
QUT Staff / QUT Alumni / Nonprofit Organisation registration | $TBC | 2 days before course start date |
QUT Staff / QUT Alumni / Nonprofit Organisation registration will require validation during the registration process.
More details
The program will consist of:
- Pre reading of 2-3 hours;
- 2 day intensive at QUT; and
- Participants will also have the opportunity to join a Network of Practice after the 2 day program (4 online sessions of 1.5 hours over 6 months using online tool Zoom) to share and discuss challenges and successes since being back in the workplace. Each session will be facilitated by one of the course leaders.