RP students get a head start in education and professional pathways through partnership with Designing Your Life Institute.

Since it was brought to the mainstream in 1991, design thinking has provided new problem-solving strategies in both personal and professional settings. The approach has seen marked success in past implementations and, in recent years, has been identified by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) as a key area of focus for our workforce.

To expand opportunities to learn design thinking skills, RP has partnered with the Designing Your Life Institute (DYLI) to equip students and adult learners with the necessary tools needed to proactively take charge of their careers and lives.

Leveraging Top-Tier Expertise and Framework

DYLI is a non-profit organisation aimed at empowering individuals to lead meaningful and purpose-driven lives through design thinking. Its approach, which incorporates the Designing Your Life (DYL) framework, has seen immense success in its founding programme at the Stanford Life Design Lab.

Officially launched in Singapore on 27 June 2023, DYLI was founded by Mr Bill Burnett, co-founder of Evans-Burnett LLC and adjunct professor at Stanford, along with Mr Mark Wee, former Executive Director of DesignSingapore and an award-winning architect.

Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) were signed at the launch between DYLI and both RP and the Human Capital Leadership Institute (HCLI), officially cementing partnerships to bring the design thinking framework for career and life planning to Singapore.

Integrating DYL into the Curriculum

With the MOUs, RP aims to equip its graduates with the DYL framework and to develop strong life skills and greater workplace adaptability.

A pilot series of workshops was conducted in 2022, introducing students to the easy-to-apply DYL framework and demonstrating how they could integrate it into their daily lives. The feedback received from the 900-plus students who attended was very positive.

Building on the positive feedback of the pilot workshops, RP will introduce the Designing Your Life framework into the curriculum for all its Polytechnic Foundation Programme students starting in April 2024.

Mr Alfred Lee, Director of RP’s Centre for Foundational Studies, said, “RP is known for adopting unique teaching and learning approaches to inculcate strong life skills in our students. Incorporating the DYL framework into our curriculum is testament to our close industry partnerships in nurturing future-ready and confident graduates with the skills to design their own future, thrive in a rapidly changing world and take Singapore's social compact forward.

Through the pilot workshops, we have also seen young students gaining confidence and finding a purpose as they take ownership to chart their future pathways. This endeavour lends greater meaning to our role as educators.”

Ms Emida Natalaray, Director, School of Technology for the Arts, discussing the benefits of DYL in
the curriculum

Nurturing Future-Ready Professionals

Based on post-research findings from previous DYL workshops, mid-career participants have expressed an increased sense of control over their career paths.

Looking ahead, RP has also developed plans to integrate the easy-to-apply framework into existing education and career guidance modules for full-time diploma students as well as to conduct DYL Continuing Education and Training courses for adult learners and industry partners.

The DYL framework and its tenets will therefore provide a streamlined set of mental tools for professionals to pursue and fulfil their ambitions, with an emphasis on a growth mindset and continuous learning as well.