design thinking lab at the university’s campus in Munich, and plans are underway to install a second system at its Berlin campus. Its implementation has transformed a wall in the open-concept classroom into a 10′ 2″ (3.10 m) wide interactive workspace where students can share and discuss their ideas in a flexible and dynamic way during the design-thinking process.

Students use design thinking to help companies deal with the impact of digital technologies. They’ve worked on research projects for SAP, Bosch and BMW. The projects focus on discovering ways for organisations to adapt to new technologies and develop ideas for new products and services.

Span helps those ideas flow more freely. The students used to rely on paper sticky notes to track their ideas and organise information during key stages of the design-thinking process. By bringing this process into the digital realm, Span makes it easier for students to evolve ideas and see correlations between research data and other information.

Multiple students work together on the 200′ (60.96 m) shared digital canvas from their personal devices or contribute and organise information directly at the wall. They also use the system to present their research findings to client companies, turning what used to be a static conversation into a collaborative and interactive experience.