Recognized for cultural transformation

Dallas ISD’s iDesign Central Fellowship was recently recognized as a finalist for the Cultural Transformation Award at the 2022 Design & Innovation Global Awards hosted by Design Thinking USA. The awards celebrate and recognize innovation and human-centered design accomplishments across communities and organizations. 

“We’re honored to have been recognized in our first year for the launch of the iDesign Central Fellowship,” said Kristen Watkins, executive director of Personalized Learning and Innovation Sustainability. “Starting something new can be intimidating and it’s really affirming to feel we are on the right track as we launch our 2nd cohort this fall.” 

The iDesign Central Fellowship is an six-month experience rooted in design thinking to help central staff fellows build creative confidence for using a human-centered approach to solving challenges at the district, division and team level.  Design thinking is an intentional process to construct fresh, relevant, and creative solutions to old problems.

“We are very proud of the district’s commitment to innovation and innovative thinking – this design thinking fellowship allows staff from every division to come together to rethink district wide systems and initiatives,” said Angie Gaylord, deputy chief of Transformation and Innovation. 

This fall, iDesign central fellows are working on division-level challenges, and in the spring, they will lead design challenges with their teams. Fellows will share their prototypes and what they learned from the fellowship at the district’s annual Innovation Showcase on Feb. 28.