Developing opportunity recognition is a powerful skill! 

By adding opportunity recognition to design, students are able to refine concepts, think more broadly about the world around them, and better understand their customers' needs. 

This collection of cards contains activities related to real-life experiences or familiar topics that can help students:

• Identify opportunities for impactful, innovative solutions.
• Develop a sense of empathy for the customer.
• Evaluate societal benefits and economic viability.  

What are you looking for?

Resources for student teams to create and test value propositions:

• Identifying Project to Product Opportunities- Assessing Value and Testing Protocols
• Electric Circuits spark an Entrepreneurial Mindset 

Help students build customer archetypes & identify opportunities:

• "Why are we making this?" Customer Discovery in a Capstone Course
• Building Solutions for Real Customers
• Identifying Viable Product Opportunities via Customer Discovery
• Opportunity Identification with Customer Interviews

Build a game board that takes students through the 4 stages of an entrepreneur's journey:

• The Journey to the Top: Board Game to Instill Entrepreneurial Mindset (also published in the Experiential Entrepreneurship Exercises Journal Vol. 2 Issue 3)

Introduce students to methods that can lead to new business ventures:

• Generating New Ideas Based on Societal Needs and Business Opportunities (e-Learning Module)

Student groups learn about the different participants in the farm economy and identify an opportunity for innovation.

• Finding Opportunities for Creating Value (Class Assignment)

Equip students to conduct field research with an open mind, become aware of the multitude of "pivot" opportunities to develop new products, and develop a sense of empathy for the targeted user.

• The Relationship Between Engineering and Design - Opportunity Identification

Implement an exercise to teach students about opportunity recognition focused on challenging convention, future proofing, and cost-benefit analysis.

• [Workshop] The Problem with Strawberries: Practicing Opportunity Recognition. Features a video.

As part of teaching the entrepreneurial mindset, encourage your students to:

• Identify opportunities that influence design.
• Investigate markets.
• Create business models.
• Learn skills to assess policy and regulatory issues. 

• Explore the KEEN Framework for a starter-set of mindset and skillset learning outcomes to use in your classes.
• Request for Readers: Have a card that should be featured here? Comment below with a link or title!