The wonderful diverse world of design can truly expand a child’s mind - from sharpening creative sensibilities to boosting problem solving skills.

We curate engaging design workshops for children of different age groups with varied levels of experience. Each session is carefully customised as per the group. If you’re an NGO, educational institution or even a group of parents looking to engage their children in enriching activities - you’ve come to the right place.

What We Do

Billimoria High School, Panchgani, invited us to conduct a stop motion animation workshop with students of classes 9 & 10. In the exercise, students learnt the steps to create an animated video. This not only introduced students to the basics of storytelling and content creation, but also gave them autonomy and ownership of the creative process.

Stop Motion workshop with Billimoria High School

Ektara, a post school NGO for impoverished children in Kolkata, invited us to organise a film making workshop. We taught the kids the fundamentals of film making, went over exercises to understand key concepts, and the kids were made to shoot their own documentary style film at the end of the workshop.

Film Making workshop with underprivileged kids

Past Workshops

Design Workshops for Children

Children are encouraged to examine information critically, and break problems down to work on them step by step.

Improves problem solving

By putting themselves in a somebody else’s shoes, kids learn to see the world around them from different perspectives.

Instils empathy

Teaching a child to think creatively will help them stand apart from the crowd, especially in a technologically advanced future.

Strengthens creativity

A child introduced to design thinking is comfortable making mistakes. Kids learn, unlearn, persevere and strive for solutions.

Embraces mistakes

Creative explorations encourage personal growth and make children happier, more confident and determined.

Builds confidence

Children learn to work in groups, which effectively hones communication skills and builds leadership qualities.

Fosters teamwork

Why should we inculcate design thinking at a young age?

In this workshop, we teach children how to take photographs of still objects and turn them into animated videos. Over the course of this session, we encourage children to explore their imagination and build their knowledge of visual storytelling. By the end of this workshop, students have hands-on experience animating stop motion videos. 

Stop Motion Animation

This workshop introduces children to human-centric design, which includes UX (user experience), UI (user interface) and ergonomics. Kids are taught the basics of design and its applications through the eyes of a consumer. At this workshop, students will create a basic design prototype of a mobile app. 


Experience Design 101

In this workshop, we go over the fundamentals of branding, marketing, sales and how they’re connected. Students are taught the key steps in creating and marketing a product as well as defining and capturing an audience. At the end of this session, students design a brand and create a marketing plan for it. 


Brand Awareness

We curate films and organise film appreciation workshops keeping in mind the age and background of the group. Kids are encouraged to dissect themes, examine their world view and share their thoughts about the film. This broadens their vocabulary and gives them an opportunity to understand themes from a fresh perspective.

Film Appreciation

In this introduction to filmmaking workshop, we teach children the art of storytelling by taking them through the key steps in making a film or video. Conceptualisation to visual storytelling and finally, a basic understanding of technology and equipment are packed into this workshop, by the end of which, the children have created their own film. 

Film Making 101

If you have an idea in mind or would like to teach specific skills to your kids, reach out to us and we’d be delighted to curate a workshop specifically based on your requirements. 

Customised Workshops

Workshops We Offer

An Innovation Jams brings together the right minds to generate a variety of solutions to a specific problem, over the course of a day.

At an innovation jam, participants come up with a bank of ideas around a specific topic, over the course of a day. A NOCT facilitator leads the session, conducting exercises and activities to encourage ideation and brainstorming. The goal is to come up with the maximum number of varied ideas and filter and prioritise them.

What is an Innovation Jam?

NOCT facilitators help the jam owner define the problem statement and come up with a list of activities for the day. 

Pre-planning

The NOCT facilitator briefs participants about the problem statement, resources available and the schedule of events.

Kick off

Participants brainstorm to define and understand the user base. Consumer analysis helps participants gauge who the customer is, what they need and what they want.

Empathise

Participants redefine the problem statement based on their consumer research and analysis and zero in on the area they will be ideating on.

Define

Under the guidance of the NOCT facilitator, participants brainstorm all possible solutions with the help of a variety of tools and activities. 

Ideate

Participants share their ideas and solutions with the group. Based on the feedback, ideas are either discarded, fine tuned or merged together to create well-defined solutions.

Discussion

The NOCT facilitator will put together an exhaustive document about the session and the ideas generated to present to the jam owner. 

Documentation

What does the session entail?

Innovation Jam

An innovation jam will help you pool together a range of ideas from participants of diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise. 

I’m starting a new business and I need a bank of ideas to kick things off. 

An innovation jams begins with a defined problem area. A NOCT facilitator will help you define this concern and lead the session so participants generate the maximum number of ideas.

My company’s growth is stagnating. I need new ideas to disrupt the market.

An innovation jam is a user centric day-long session. Through multiple brainstorming and ideation exercises, we will help you understand your customers better and define areas that need to be worked on.

We need to identify gaps and pain points from a user’s perspective.

Yes, absolutely. An innovation jam can help you identify areas within the company that need to be worked on and find solutions to these problems.

Can an innovation jam help me take my company to the next level?

Why should I host an Innovation Jam?

The purpose is to gather the maximum number of ideas, from a varied group of people, in a single day. 

Short duration session

Using different ideation tactics and brainstorming exercises, the NOCT facilitator will ensure that participants come up with a multitude of ideas.

Numerous divergent ideas

Innovation jams bring together participants from diverse backgrounds. Through mutual exchange of thoughts, we see very unique and interesting ideas come to the fore.

Cross-disciplinary participation

If you’re looking to host a fun yet productive session, an innovation jam is a great way to bring team members together to work towards a common goal.

Team building

No one knows an organisation’s user base better than the team itself. Participants dive into problems by taking in all perspectives, from across departments, to find a variety of solutions to the consumer’s problem.

User centric

A fast paced, short duration competitive event to innovate and find solutions for problem areas in the business, facilitated by NOCT.

A design hackathon is a short competitive session in which participants formulate solutions to a problem statement. Hackathons can be hosted by any organisation and can tackle a wide gamut of pain points, with participants from both within and outside the organisation. The most viable solution is selected as the winner by a panel of experts.

What’s a design hackathon?

We facilitated a Noct-a-thon for the Panchgani Municipality to find solutions to develop alternative tourism in the hill station. Members of the public as well as NOCT’s team participated in the 2 day session that ended with a very unique festival idea winning the competition. Case study coming soon.

Design Hack for alternative tourism in Panchgani

Hacks We’ve Facilitated

NOCT facilitators and the hack owner define the problem statement and prepare a schedule of events for the session.

NOCT facilitator briefs participants on the problem statement as well as the schedule for the session. Participants are grouped into diverse teams comprising of members from different departments. 

Kickoff

Teams carry out extensive analysis of the audience. User research is critical and helps teams understand the needs of the target group.

Empathise 

Teams zero in on the area they want to work on and redefine the problem statement based on audience research. 

The NOCT facilitator engages participants in brainstorming activities and exercises, helping teams come up with as many solutions as they can. By the end of this day, teams will select the most workable solution. 

Teams create a storyboard of a quick and dirty prototype of their solution, without expending too much time, energy or resources. This is taken to users for testing and is refined for pitching.

Prototype & Testing

Teams pitch their ideas and resolutions to a jury, who will then select the winning resolution.

Pitch it! 

The NOCT facilitator documents the entire session and gathers all the ideas teams came up with into a comprehensive document, which is then handed over to the hack owner. 

Post Hackathon: Debriefing

What a design hack entails

Design Hackathons

It’s absolutely normal for teams to plateaux, it happens to the best of us. A hackathon will take them out of their daily work and challenge them to explore their critiquing problem-solving side.

My team is stuck in a rut. I want to host an activity to revitalise them.

The hackathon process enables participants to think out of the box and come up with solutions to seemingly unsolvable tough problems.

I need to tackle a pressing matter that I’ve not been able to solve.

Hackathons condense the ideation, production and testing processes into a session. In a short span of time you will have compelling evidence to gauge whether you’re on the right path. 

We’re launching new ventures and I want to ensure we’re on track.

Hackathons are just that - teams can have a great time working towards a common goal. The competitive nature also makes it very exciting.

I’d like to engage my team in a fun yet productive session.

A hackathon is the right event to put your team’s thinking caps on and align everyone’s energies. With different departments coming together, you will have a variety of diverse solutions to test out.

I’m afraid my organisation is falling behind. We’ve run out of ideas.

When should I organise a hackathon?

A hackathon is centred around a problem statement or “How might we?” question. Participants use all their resources to find the most well-equipped solution.

Problem solving 

Hackathon teams follow the HCD process. They build products and services based on a solid understanding of the user’s wants and needs, and ask for feedback and validation directly from them.

Participants from diverse departments are grouped into teams. Multiple perspectives and varied backgrounds thus come together to form solutions.

Cross disciplinary collaboration 

Participants must quickly find working solutions for the challenge. This pushes them to experiment, work on weak points, evolve and execute their ideas effectively.

Fast failure

Teams unearth multiple ways of tackling the same issue. Depending on the number of participants, a hackathon can amass a wide range of solutions for the challenge. 

Diverse ideas

Hackathons are time-bound competitions. Teams are ambitious and inspired, and the energy is explosive. Participants compete against one another to come up with the winning resolution.

High octane event 

Members from different departments join heads to actively find solutions, thus dynamics within the organisation evolve and the collective consciousness grows.

Company growth

Organisations that host hackathons are perceived as innovation drivers and game changers. They are viewed as exciting places to work by young recruits as well as growth seekers. 

Enhance brand perception

Why should I host a hackathon?

A 5-day process to find answers for critical business questions through brainstorming, design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers.

A Sprint Master from the NOCT team ideates on the problems that need to be tackled, invites members from the participating organisation and gathers resources. The Sprint Master is the workshop facilitator, and ensures the session runs smoothly.

Day 0: Pre-Preparation

All stakeholders share their ideas and user learnings. This helps teams identify challenges and expand their knowledge of the problem area.

Day 1: Understand

Participants think of all possible solutions. The Sprint Master organises brainstorming and ideation exercises to spark divergent ideas.

Day 2: Ideate

Participants weigh the pros and cons to refine ideas and after deliberation, converge on the most effective solutions.

Day 3: Define

Teams build realistic but quick & dirty prototypes, investing the least amount of money, time and resources. Fast and furious!

Day 4: Prototype

Prototypes are put to the test. The Sprint Master invites users to test the products and provide feedback. 

Day 5: Test

Here’s how this works: 

Design Sprints

Tackle consumers’ concerns head-on. Generate ideas for products and services based on what users need. 

Focus on your users

A sprint brings members from different teams together and everyone has a say. A solution is inspected by members of different departments, and fine tuned.

Consider all perspectives

In a span of 5 days, teams have to build working prototypes, hear what users have to say and effectively address concerns raised during testing.

No time lost in translation

No one knows your customer better than your team. Instead of bringing a third party in, we amass all the wealth of information your team has and dive into solutions. 

In-house solutions

Sharing ideas, skills and learnings, teams work together towards solutions which naturally builds trust and confidence.

Utilise the power of design thinking in your organisation