feature

Design thinking, social

entrepreneurship and
innovation at the forefront of
Pimpama State Secondary
College
By Tom Allen and Adam Jefford

Biographies
Tom Allen
Tom Allen is a design strategist, social entrepreneur and
educator, passionate about empowering people to create positive
futures. Tom runs Seven Positive, an award-winning strategic
design consultancy working with purpose-driven organisations
to provide facilitation and design-led initiatives which provide
strong, lasting impact. Tom founded  Impact Boom, a social
impact blog, podcast, accelerator program and global community
which provides ideas, insights, resources and support to help
others create positive social change. As an experienced educator, Tom works with leading
universities locally and internationally to develop and deliver innovative programs across
design, business and marketing.

Adam Jefford
Adam Jefford is Manager of Asia Pacific Design Library at the
State Library of Queensland. Over the past decade, Adam has
worked as a teacher in Brisbane and regional Queensland
schools and was most recently the Head of Creative Industries at
Pimpama State Secondary College. Adam is a past Queensland-
Smithsonian (Cooper Hewitt) Fellow where he worked in
public programs and education outreach at the Cooper Hewitt
Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. In 2016, Adam was
awarded an Australian Good Design Award for Jump Start — a design thinking and social
entrepreneurship program empowering school students to make a positive change in the
world through design-led creativity and entrepreneurial endeavours.

12 November 2017 ACCESS

 feature

Those of us who were fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend school will
probably remember a key ‘aha’ moment: perhaps a conversation with a specific
teacher, maybe a classroom experience that led to a moment of clarity, or for a
lucky few, an experience that shaped their life and personal journey.

With the support of Arts Queensland’s
Artist in Residence funding, we (Tom and
Adam) set out to empower young people
to positively impact the world through
design-led creativity and entrepreneurial
endeavours; in other words, we are trying
to catalyse on these ‘aha’ moments with our
students.
This vision led to the creation of the Jump
Start project: a 12-week design thinking
and social entrepreneurship program
that empowers high school students to
create prosperous futures. Students are
challenged to embrace risk and failure, and
confidently respond to community problems
by creating social enterprises, products or
services that create positive impact.
focuses on igniting student passion in areas
where they could use their skills to define
(and re-define) problems and respond
by creating positive change for the wider
community.
The first iteration of the project ran with a
small group of Year 10 students in 2015,
and our first cohort showed promising
signs of becoming future job creators,
(rather than job seekers), with a calculated
risk-taking mindset unafraid of failure (one
of the participants published his second
app on the Apple App Store on his school
holidays!). The second iteration during
2016 saw the project run with Years 7 and
8 students enrolled in the College’s Design
Excellence program. Further iterations have
been running during 2017.

Throughout the project, students are
provided with priority access to industry,
academia and university students. Whilst
their newly learnt design strategy and
enterprise skills would be useful in a
traditional business sense, the project also
A critical driver which aligned with our
development of the project was The
Foundation for Young Australians Unlimited
Potential report, which identified four key
priorities to help prepare young people for
the future:

November 2017 ACCESS 13

feature

Whilst their newly learnt design

strategy and enterprise skills would
be useful in a traditional business
sense, the project also focuses on
igniting student passion in areas
where they could use their skills to
define (and re-define) problems and
respond by creating positive change
for the wider community.

• The need to educate and equip young

people with enterprising skills to thrive
in a rapidly changing work environment
to ensure a better connection between
what schools teach and what the
economy and society needs.
• The need to invest in young Australian
business and social entrepreneurship to
increase opportunities for young people
to become job creators rather than job
seekers, and to foster a vibrant culture
of innovation and entrepreneurship.
• Turbocharge young people’s connection
with the Asian region, building their ‘Asia
literacy’ with meaningful relationships
and exchanges throughout the school
years and beyond.
• The need for ‘a fire in the belly’, to be
passionate about the things they believe
in and want to see change.
Shortly after the Jump Start project
commenced, the Department of Education
and Training released Advancing Education.
Among other things, the discussion paper
highlighted the importance of:
... developing the Entrepreneurs of
Tomorrow through opportunities to work
with industry to shape their ideas and
business plans’ and that ‘preparing young
Queenslanders to engage in the new
opportunities of a connected and global
economy (as being) critical for their future.
Later on, in the Jump Start project, Malcolm
Turnbull released the Innovation and
Science Agenda, arguing that innovation
must be at the heart of the economy:
It’s not just about new ideas, products and
business models; innovation is also about
creating a culture where we embrace risk,
move quickly to back good ideas and learn
from mistakes.
As a school, Pimpama State Secondary
College (PSSC) continues to invest in
‘building students up with the skills and
knowledge so they can thrive in the 21st
Century’. As part of PSSC’s commitment to
innovation, entrepreneurship and design
thinking, the College invited Tom to continue
his collaboration with the school during
2016–2017, with Jump Start winning an
Australian Good Design Award in 2016.

14 November 2017 ACCESS

 feature

In what we believe is an Australian first, This year, with Adam on secondment

and in the spirit of advancing education and
the innovation and science agenda, Tom is
embedded in the college as a design and
business strategist with responsibility to
continue to create and foster innovative
learning opportunities which prepare
students for future challenges. In part, this
is done through:
• the continued development and delivery
of the Jump Start Program;
• engagement and liaison between
industry, tertiary education and the
school to provide students with real-
world educational experiences; and
• capacity building, training and support
of college staff to explore creativity,
design thinking, entrepreneurialism and
innovation.
as manager at the State Library of
Queensland’s Asia Pacific Design Library,
Tom and PSSC teachers Stephen Robinson
and Dwayne Scicluna launched Fix-ed, a
school-operated social enterprise which
gives students valuable experience and
skills to become 21st century leaders. Fix-ed
was built on the success of the Jump Start
program, with a sharper focus on repair-
culture, participatory design and social
enterprise in practice as a social, cultural
and environmental response to community
hardship now and in the future.
The Double Diamond design process
(originally created by the British Design
Council in 2005), adapted for Jump Start and
Fix-ed, forms the basis from which students
operate in both the Jump Start project

Fix-ed was built on the success of the Jump Start program,

with a sharper focus on repair-culture, participatory design and
social enterprise in practice as a social, cultural and environmental
response to community hardship now and in the future.

November 2017 ACCESS 15

feature
and Fix-ed. By first developing a strong
understanding of the root causes of existing
problems in the community and building
empathy with the people experiencing a
problem, students build a strong foundation
from which they can respond.
Fix-ed high school students engage with
the local community via a hands-on,
collaborative human-centred design, social
entrepreneurship and repair program that
sees them engage, design and empathise
16 November 2017 ACCESS
with target users. The initiative aims to
improve the well-being of the community
and make a positive difference in the lives
of people who need it most.
Students research, identify and reframe
community problems, and this has seen
a current focus on improving social
connectedness for elderly citizens.
Students learn how to repair and reuse
discarded objects as part of their proposed
user-centred solutions. These objects,
such as mobility scooters, donated by our
collaborators, are repaired and provided
to those most disadvantaged in the
community; improving their quality of life
and addressing ‘location-specific’ unique
community issues.
Typically, the first phase sees them
undertaking primary and secondary
research, visiting aged-care facilities (for
our recent focus on social-connectedness

for the elderly) and using a number of
tools which sees them creating personas
and developing customer journey maps.
Students are able to identify clear ‘pains’ and
‘gains’ for target demographics and uncover
important insights. From there, students
begin divergent thinking to conceptualise
a number of responses, whilst prototyping,
testing and iterating in ‘rapid learning loops’.
In many ways this is similar to the lean
startup approach. After continuing to test,
build and refine, students arrive at tried and
tested designs which stand a much greater
chance of creating value and responding
appropriately to the identified problems.
We have an array of exciting endeavours
unfolding at PSSC this year with local
partners and are excited that they respond
to the four key priorities of the FYA.
Creatively teaching design thinking, social
entrepreneurship and innovation lies at
the forefront of this work and empowering
students to positively impact the world is
our absolute priority.
If you’re engaged in industry or academia,
let’s talk about how you could partner or get
involved in our initiatives. By participating,
feature
Students research, identify
and reframe community
problems, and this has seen
a current focus on improving
social connectedness for elderly
citizens. Students learn how
to repair and reuse discarded
objects as part of their proposed
user-centred solutions.
you have the power to dramatically shape
and change a student’s direction, allowing
them to reframe problems and respond
with strong opportunities which benefit the
wider community.
This article has been adapted from an article
that originally appeared on State Library of
Queensland’s Design Online blog.
Links
Pimpama State Secondary College
Facebook.
Find Tom Allen, Seven Positive and Impact
Boom on Twitter.
Find Adam Jefford on Twitter.
Learn more about design thinking, social
innovation and entrepreneurship on
Tom’s blog and podcast Impact Boom.
November 2017 ACCESS 17
Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction
prohibited without permission.