Austin Center For Design Taking Applications For Interaction Design, Social Entrepreneurship

EAST AUSTIN, TX — The Austin Center for Design in East Austin is currently accepting applications for those interested in certification in interaction design and social entrepreneurship.

According to the center's website, the one-year program is meant for people wishing "to gain autonomy through creativity," officials said. "We teach a powerful process of actionable empathy, and students learn to make and use artifacts to drive change. We focus on creative learning-by-doing style of the design studio environment, and substantiate method with theory."

Participating students rapidly acquire knowledge of various humanitarian issues, such as poverty or nutrition, officials explained, while formulating advanced design ability in synthesis, service and system design, and entrepreneurship.

The nonprofit's certification course mixes a number of disciplines in one package covering art, business, design, social affairs and technology. Officials of the nonprofit explained their students are given an outlet to create designs based on their interest in those five areas of interest.

"Students who attend Austin Center for Design have an existing interest and proven track record in design, business, technology, art, or social affairs," officials wrote on their website. "The rigorous program in Interaction Design and Social Entrepreneurship brings together these students in a creative environment to gain autonomy and produce working, multi-platform design products."

Students accepted into the program are not required to have an undergraduate degree in art, design or technology in order to apply, officials said. So what exactly is interaction design? For that matter, what is social entrepreneurship?

It's best to let Austin Center for Design officials to explain the concepts for themselves:

• "Interaction Design is the creation of a dialogue between a person and a designed artifact - a product, service, or system. An Interaction Designer creates frameworks for behavioral change, on both a grand and small scale. Interaction Designers may create software, physical artifacts, environmental spaces, or systems of engagement; in all cases, the focus for the Interaction Designer is on the creation of a meaningful dialogue between a person and the designed elements.

"After studying at the Austin Center for Design, students have the skills necessary to develop interaction design solutions related to web sites, mobile phones, software, physical products, complicated systems, and services. Students learn specific skills on how to craft these interaction design artifacts, and also learn a process for managing the complexity that is associated with interaction design. Additionally, students learn a philosophical way of thinking about complexity, and managing ill-structured problem solving as it occurs in a job setting. This philosophy is one that is dependent on contextualized methods of synthesis in order to iteratively solve problems through prototypes and testing."

• "Social Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of a better world through problem solving. A Social Entrepreneur addresses some of the largest issues facing our world, including those of poverty, sustainability, inequality, access to natural resources, and education, through creativity and innovative uses of technology and capitol. While the work of a Social Entrepreneur may appear altruistic, it frequently offers great personal, societal, and financial rewards.

"The problems addressed in this segment of work are large, and affect millions of people. A slight positive change in behavior can have an exponential repercussion when introduced into the world, and so Social Entrepreneurs commonly view problems both "in the small" and "in the large" at once. Students at the Austin Center for Design focus exclusively on interaction design problems that are of a social nature, and work to change behavior through design. Students learn ways of presenting their work in a compelling manner, suitable for generating both positive public acknowledgement and also for raising capital for future endeavors."

For application information, click here. Curriculum information can be accessed by clicking here.

>>> Photo credit: Jan Dittrich (WMDE) via WikiMedia Commons