Ulrich Weinberg

Ulrich Weinberg

Ulrich Weinberg

Director School of Design Thinking | Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam

Prof. Ulrich Weinberg is directing the HPI School of Design Thinking since 2007. Prior to HPI, Ulrich Weinberg was an expert for computer animation and games, holding a professorship at Potsdam Film University and a visiting professorship at Communication University of China, Beijing. The German business magazine “Handelsblatt” put him on the list of top 100 innovators in Germany. He has been board member of DGQ German Society for Quality since 2014, co-founder of WeQ-Foundation and is the founding president of the GDTA Global Design Thinking Alliance with members in 5 continents. Ulrich Weinberg supports and advises for years companies such as SAP, Janssen, Volkswagen and Bosch in transformation processes to networked digital work structures. He is a sought-after conference speaker in Germany and abroad on the topics of transformation, Design Thinking, Network Thinking and collaborative working and learning culture. He has two children and lives with his family in Berlin. In his current book “Network Thinking – Beyond Brockhaus-Thinking” he calls for radical new thinking in education and business.

The HPI School of Design Thinking is a sister institution of Stanford d.school. The principle: course-related project-based learning in multidisciplinary teams, no individual grading. Collaborating people are the center of attention in a specially designed variable environment, supporting a teamwork atmosphere. 120 students representing 70 disciplines, 60 universities and 20 nations are accompanied by a coaching team of 35 professors and assistants in a two semester program. Additionally more than 3,000 professionals are trained in Design Thinking every year at the HPI. The Design Thinking approach has become highly attractive to large corporations throughout the last years. More than half of Germany’s largest companies are using Design Thinking as part for their digital transformation and cultural change processes. The Potsdam School of Design Thinking became a model for educational institutions in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Stockholm, Cape Town and Santiago de Chile.