Anya Smith-Roman
Anya is a 2017 graduate of the Innovation Diploma and a current Stamps Presidential Scholar at Georgia Tech studying business and psychology to become a social entrepreneur in education. Since high school, she has been striving to forward the Education Transformation Movement by networking with thought leaders around the world, speaking and coaching at education conferences, and being a pioneer of innovative learner-centered education practices. Anya is currently Co-Founder and Editor in Chief of Trailblazers ed-magazine, Director of Design Thinking Education and Research for the social impact organization Wish For WASH, and a gymnastics coach/head choreographer at Jump Start Gymnasium. For the past few years Anya’s primary driving question has been, “How might we make student voice at the forefront of education redesign?” This question has led her into a life striving to “blur the lines between school and the real world.” Anya dreams of a future where “school” consists of students working side by side with community leaders to design for pressing issues in the world.
WORKSHOP
Wish for WASH Design Jam Workshop
How might we use design thinking methods to engage students in STEM? Work with current and former Georgia Tech students that are a part of the organization Wish for WASH as they guide you through the process of human-centered and empathic design. Wish for WASH Thinks Inc’s mission is to bring more diverse minds, talent, and innovation to the problems of global health and WASH in our world through the lens of research, design, and education because #everybodypoops. Over the past 4 years Wish for WASH has been running design thinking workshops and courses with partners such as OpenIDEO, The Paideia School, The Weber School, Girl Scouts of Atlanta, and the Museum of Design Atlanta as a part of our educational and advocacy workstream.
Through our workshops and curricula, we seek to empower the next generation of STEM learners, design thinkers, and human-centered problem-solvers to use empathic, interdisciplinary, and iterative tools to build sustainable and inclusive innovation in the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector to help the world reach the 6th Sustainable Development Goal by 2030. In this specific 3-hour workshop, we will first do a 2-hour Design Jam – a rapid sprint through the design thinking process where participants will get first hand condensed experience going through all of the phases of a design challenge addressing one of our modern world’s biggest problems: water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). After learning more about design thinking through experience, we will then conclude with a 1-hour facilitation training to learn how to take design thinking tools and methodologies and bring them into a classroom setting with your own specific topics. Learn more.