Dubai: GEMS International School-Al Khail (GIS) has launched its new cutting-edge Innovation Hub, a centre of excellence designed to nurture creativity, critical thinking, and innovation through the power of design thinking.
Mr. Simon Herbert, Head of School/CEO at GIS, stated that, “We are so fortunate at GEMS International School to have such remarkable facilities. This astonishing Innovation Hub in our primary school allows our younger students to use design thinking and to express their creativity within the most wonderful surroundings. It also links with our secondary design curriculum and provides a smooth pathway through our IB school.”
Design thinking, far more than a buzzword, is a structured framework for addressing real-world challenges. At GIS, this six-stage process empowers students to empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test, and iterate on solutions, breaking down the barriers between various concepts and disciplines to foster transdisciplinary thinking.
The benefits of design thinking are profound. Students gain the ability to seamlessly integrate concepts and disciplines, express their creativity using diverse resources, and think critically and innovatively when problem-solving. The Innovation Hub, which is available to all students in primary, replaces siloed learning with a transdisciplinary mindset, bringing education to life in a real-world context.
The Innovation Hub is equipped with digital music production tools, 3D printing capabilities, coding resources, robotics, product design tools, makerspace materials, and immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality.
The centre is designed to nurture young minds with state-of-the-art resources, ergonomic workstations, dynamic seating, and multi-use facilities that together create an optimal learning environment.
GIS’ Innovation Hub joins the school’s existing Centre of Excellence for Aviation, Aeronautics, and Space. It stands as a beacon of change in the world of education, exemplifying the IB continuum school’s dedication to nurturing the next generation of innovators and creators. With design thinking at its core and a wealth of resources and experiences to offer, the Innovation Hub is poised to redefine education and inspire students to make a lasting, positive impact on the world.