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LUMEN | THINKING OUT OF THE BOX WITH SIGNUM FIDEI
Thinking out of the box with Signum Fidei
by Jack Wigmore , Ethan Ng , Jason Lim and Teo Hansen
Year 4 Innovathon 2022
The Signum Fidei ( SF ) Programme is a special programme for Year 3 and 4 Integrated Programme ( IP ) students that makes use of the Design Thinking framework to innovate and solve problems in real-world contexts . The design thinking framework has five stages : empathising , defining , ideation , prototyping and evaluating , and through these steps , students are able to come up with innovative yet sustainable solutions for the issue at hand .
In the two years of SF , the students worked with different external organisations on their needs , suggesting improvements and enhancing their operations by coming up with new ideas . Year 3 students are grounded on identifying potential problems , the UN sustainability goals and working towards achieving a solution that can be sustained and useful for Singapore . In year 4 , students are tasked to take the initiatives to contact organisations of their choice and work on their proposals to address the issues . For students , SF was a fruitful experience : under the guidance of teachers , they learnt how to properly communicate with external organisations along with honing their skills of time management , IT mobile app , presentation , and of course , generating innovative ideas to be presented .
Through the SF journey , students learnt many skills that will serve them well in the future . They learnt the skills of innovation through the Design Thinking process , which taught them step-by-step the foundation behind every great invention . The Design Thinking framework allowed students to be creative and encouraged critical thinking in a strategic way , by teaching students to first analyse their problems and showing them the skills of critical thinking . With these skills equipped , they are not only able to find solutions to their SF problem statements but are also able to reuse the process in the future . Within the span of two years , these students delivered remarkable results , creating solutions that far exceeded expectations , all with the Design Thinking Framework . Students also learnt another skill : teamwork , which is an essential
Year 3 Innovathon 2022 part of SF . The short time frame that the students were given to work with called for much discipline , responsibility and time management skills on the student ’ s parts as they juggled their academics and extracurricular activities along with this project . Thus , proper time management skills were necessary in ensuring that the project went smoothly and deadlines were met . With groups having to work together closely to think of ideas and solutions , students learnt to work with a wider range of personalities , a skill that will prove extremely useful as they continue their education , and eventually , enter the workforce
The Year 3 SF journey began with looking through the UN sustainability goals and selecting a specific goal to identify potential sustainability-related problems