Prof. Steffi W. Neukirchen

A Spanish foundation has been working successfully in rural regions of India for many years and is coming to Germany to generate donations here as well, in general and more specifically among a young target group. How can this work? In the summer semester of 2019, students from the master’s program in business communication supported Andrea Rudolph, executive director of the “Vicente Ferrer Foundation,” in this real world challenge. They developed strong, communication concepts and implemented them prototypically. Please find two excellent projects here. Share + Fair = Shair Excerpt from the concept: “We want to create Moments of Relevance by integrating the action of donating into the living environment of the target group. Young people should be picked up where they hang out, which is why we decided to get in touch with them on their smartphones, which they always have with them, and develop a donation app – which we call shair.” Students: Linda Rosendräger, Luisa Sabrowski, Maximilian Tassi Letters for Women Excerpt from the concept: “With #lettersforwomen, we give the target group the opportunity to quite simply and literally set a sign for female empowerment, equal rights, as well as independence. We are creating a platform where donors can buy letters and use them to generate donations using a gamification approach.” Every letter makes a difference, ..male Empowerment becomes FEmale Empowerment, ..dependence becomes INdependence and ..men Empowerment becomes WOmen Empowerment – every letter gives an Indian woman a voice! Students: Katja Galitschew, Plamena Maleva and Shirin Yazgan Course: Media conceptContribution: Course design, teachingProgram: Master of Business communicationUniversity: HTW, BerlinYear: 2019

Design that Matters – that was the title of a course I held in the Masters Program of Business Communication at the University of Applied Sciences, Berlin. With Design Thinking techniques we focussed on finding innovative answers to questions raised by current social issues. Topics or questions the students wanted to address were for example: to reduce the amount of plastic rubbish or how to help people to recycle their plastic correctly, the “Kita Krise” in Berlin or how we can fight loneliness and anonymity in major German cities, not just for the elder. Even though the topics themselves were not new, the students were able to find new solutions through empathising, a strong focus on the persona’s needs and the use of different brainstorming techniques. threeeasy – recycling made easy… The initial question of the group of students was: … Through intense fieldwork and letting their interview partners document their trash situation with photos, they found out, that … threeeasy’s three brand values: encouraging, eco-friendly and easy The SOLUTION for small households: threeeasy – the three-piece garbage bag and an App that helps you sort your stuff(students from left to right: Lena Lülfing, Jonas Hilkert, Carolin Oberst) Visualising research data and findings was an essential part of the development process, as well as prototyping and creating mood boards. Student feedback:“The course was very dynamic and we were able to do a lot of creative work independently in our groups. I also found the lectures on design thinking and „good design“ very interesting and enlightening.” Course: Design concept, Design ThinkingContribution: course design, teachingProgram: Master of Business CommunicationUniversity: HTW, BerlinYear: 2019

From basics in programming to information architecture, from creating a navigation concept to basics in user experience design, from responsive web design to mobile applications. At RMIT Vietnam, two sequential modules provided a broad overview of key topics in interactive media and user experience design. A mobile application called “chefipy” is helping to solve the problem of food waste (posters, mock up, wireframes and stills from a presentation movie for the cooking app) from Anh Dang Ngoc Huy, Kiet Pham Tuan, Huynh Nguyen, Toàn Minh and Tran Nguyen Ngoc Responsive City Guide about Saigon from Anh Dang Ngoc Huy , Kiet Pham Tuan, Huynh Nguyen, Toàn Minh and Tran Nguyen Ngoc Responsive City Guide about Kyoto from Hai Phan Thanh DADA inspired basic programming exercises from Hoan Tran Khai Anh Dang Ngoc Huy Nhi Tran Thuy Y Course: Interactive Media 1 & 2Contrubution: course design, teachingProgram: Bachelor of Design (Digital Media)University: School of Communication & Design, RMIT VietnamYear: 2016 – 2018