Our Bedrocks

Commonly referred to as the d.School at Stanford University, the school of Design is one of the most highly regarded design schools in the world. The d.School brings together students from diverse backgrounds to learn the Design Thinking process. These students are both industry leaders and social innovators. At the d.School, students are as likely to be experts in either engineering, anthropology, math, social science, literature or writing - and they come together to grow from one another's insights, perspectives and expertise. Please visit their website to learn more: Stanford d.School

The Nueva School is located in Hillsborough, Ca. They are an independent school that focuses on Social Emotional Learning, and has been a change leader in bringing the power and potential of Design Thinking to the K-12 learning world. The Nueva School has a close working relationship with the Stanford d.School and David Kelley, the founder of the global design firm, IDEO. The Nueva School has a model "Innovation Lab" that is the inspiration for which we are creating our own Design Studio. Please visit their website to learn more: Nueva School.

Tony Wagner has become an advocate for changing the way that we teach students. Tony is a proponent of the need for students to have the opportunity to be creative in school. Without creativity, students will fail at being innovative, and in order for our nation to remain competitive economically on the global scene, we must continue to create innovators. Tony recently published a book with that title, that you may click on to learn more: Creating Innovators . Tony is a Professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and earned much acclaim after publishing his book entitled The Global Achievement Gap (click title to learn more). Please visit his website to learn more: Tony Wagner .

David Kelley has been a life long innovator, and is the founder of the the leading global design firm, IDEO (click for more information). David Kelley is one of the forefathers of the "Design Thinking" process and was instrumental in the success of the Stanford d.School, where he regularly teaches. David was a good friend of Apple's founder, Steve Jobs, and David helped to create the first Apple computer mouse. David deeply belives that design must be "human centered" and has built the necessity of utilizing Empathy into the process of Design Thinking. David and his brother Tom released a book entitled Creative Confidence (click for more information) that our Founding Faculty will use the foster creativity within our program. To learn more, please visit this website: David Kelley @ IDEO.