“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” — Albert Einstein

When Professor Joan Ball shared this quote during the human centered design session at the beginning of the Cooper Union Ideation Workshop, she set the stage for the problem definition challenge that participants would face. By the end of the day, they would leave with a fuller understanding of how human centered design works and why it is essential for problem solving at the bottom of the pyramid.

The challenge that the teams were presented with was: how do you solve the sanitation crisis in Myanmar. They had a packet full of research, four mentors, and 12 hours to take the first steps towards designing a social enterprise. 12 hours is not a lot of time.

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