An Executive Education That Transforms

While design used to refer to just aesthetics, today - it has come to encapsulate almost every aspect of our lives. Whether you are designing a website, a physical product, or a customer experience, the focus is no longer about problem solving; but all about understanding your users and designing for them.

Hence - Design Thinking! It’s an innovative approach to designing for your users that involves empathetic research, prototyping and experimentation.

In this program, you will master a robust, human-centered approach to designing and improving products, experiences and systems at any scale. Working with practical, hands-on exercises - you will start by defining the problem or challenge you seek to address and then gather key user insights that will help you develop powerful personas and narratives. From there, you will move into idea generation and rapid prototyping for potential solutions and improvements. Informed by testing and analysis, you will learn to iterate on and refine your prototype using design thinking methodology to ultimately generate a rigorous, viable design solution - for your users to win them over.

• Design Thinking Basics (TGS-2020507573)
  • Synopsis: This short course will provide an introduction to the design thinking process, and its application to user experience (UX) design. Design principles and underlying frameworks regarding human-computer interaction and the design thinking process will be covered, providing a foundation for further exploration of design thinking in upcoming courses.

• Turning Design Thinking into Action I (TGS-2020507575)
  • Synopsis: This short course will introduce the techniques used when applying design thinking to user experience (UX) design. The course covers the five stages of design thinking (empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test), providing the skills needed to understand user needs, explore those needs through low-fi prototyping, and test whether the user's needs are met.

• Turning Design thinking into Action II (TGS-2020507574)
  • Synopsis: This short course builds from the previous courses, introducing more advanced prototyping techniques and evaluation methods. The course also explores ways in which to integrate design thinking and the user-centered, iterative design process into modern software development processes such as Agile, preparing participants to apply design thinking to UX design.

Completion of all three short courses entitles students to the Professional Certificate in Design Thinking and Designing User Experience.er E

Communication strategies evolve rapidly in today's ever-changing landscape. Some essentials of communication, however, continue to remain relevant. In this programme, you will master the tips in four key areas of communication - crisis communications, public relations, public speaking, and media writing - with a strong focus on digital media and technologies.

• Crisis Communication Masterclass (TGS-2020507519)
  • Synopsis: With social media, global 24/7 news and a more engaged public, organisations find themselves having to deal with issues and crises in the public eye more than ever before. Managing these situations satisfactorily can mean the difference between survival of the brand. This two day workshop is designed to equip any organisation’s communications/crisis team on what to expect, what to do, and how to prepare for that dreaded crisis.

• Social Media and Public Relations (TGS-2020507520)
  • Synopsis: Social media has become a critical tool for 90% of all organisations today, whether in the private, public or NGO sector. Yet many brands still struggle to effectively utilise these platforms to engage their audience. This two day workshop will help participants improve their organisation’s efforts on social media.

• Engaging a Media Audience: Public Speaking in the Digital Age (TGS-2020507577)
  • Synopsis: This one-day course prepares participants to be effective and engaging speakers. It introduces participants to media theories of communication, audience and persona with particular emphasis on the practical aspects of researching, organising and presenting speeches in a media-saturated context. It looks into adapting evidence, language, visual aids and other message components for strategic communication to designated media audiences.

• Getting Your Message Across in Today's Media Landscape (TGS-2020507576)
  • Synopsis: The media landscape today is different, and perhaps, more challenging. Organisations have to understand and work with digital and traditional media, as the media remains an important tool for organisations to influence public opinion and key stakeholders. This course will help participants communicate with and appeal to different media channels, by acquiring skillsets used by media specialists to inform, educate and persuade through clear and succinct writing.

Completion of all four short courses entitles students to the Professional Certificate in Media Communication.

In essence, Digital Storytelling is the use of digital tools to tell stories. In today's media landscape, content is king; all industries will require professionals who can make, edit, and communicate with images and videos. In this programme, you will be introduced to skills, theories, and methods around communicating with both moving and still imagery, with a focus on communicating with visual imagery in the digital age.

• Introduction to Digital Storytelling through Videography (TGS-2020507646)
  • Synopsis: Digital Literacy has become a vital part of our daily lives as individual members of society and as professionals. This course provides a basic understanding of multimedia tools to bring narratives to life and explore the storyteller in you.

• Smartphone Photography and Videography (TGS-2020507647)
  • Synopsis: Digital Literacy has become a vital part of our daily lives as individual members of society and as professionals. Most people have a smartphone with apps that can record, audio, and take photos. But to utilize smartphones to tell compelling stories through video and photographic images we ned to understand the craft. This course explores how you can utilize your smartphone to bring your story ideas to the next level.

• Introduction to Film Studies and Communication (TGS-2020507648)
  • Synopsis: Film studies looks at the movie as a cultural subject and asks questions about our interaction with audio-visual media to better understand and contextualize ourselves and the society we live in globally. This course explores a basic introduction to Film Studies with a focus on analysis, discussion, film theory and film history with references to philosophy, media and cultural studies and communication.

• Introduction to Professional Videography: From Prep to Shoot (TGS-2020507649)
  • Synopsis: This course focuses on the production phases of pre-production and shoot, exploring industry contexts and examples to practice working in teams as well as individually to understand principles of storytelling in context with professional production phase execution.

• Introduction to Professional Video Editing (TGS-2020507650)
  • Synopsis: This course focuses on the production phase of post-production, exploring industry contexts and examples to practice working in teams as well as individually to understand principles of storytelling through professional video editing in context with professional production phase execution and the craft of storytelling.

• Storytelling based on Industry Project Briefs (TGS-2020507651)
  • Synopsis: In this 1-day course, you will experience professional video projection experience from receiving the creative brief, budget and timeline, to working with clients to developing a compelling story.

• Out of the Box: Experimental Storytelling with Photography and Video (TGS-2020507652)
  • Synopsis: In this 1-day course, you will learn the art of experimental storytelling by amplifying and extending the digital storytelling capabilities, exploring video as art.

Completion of all seven short courses entitles students to the Professional Certificate in Digital Storytelling.

Telling stories with data is core to many businesses, from marketing to research analytics, and from business to sports. But it is also important to align data presentations to objectives and audiences. A cluttered or confusing chart can lose people's interest and obscure the central story in the data. In this course, through data simulations, activities, and projects, we will first learn how to ask the right questions from the prepared data and identify actionable insights. Then, we will learn the best practices for presenting data and insights together, and how to tweak narratives to suit different purposes and audiences.

• From Answers to Audiences: Data Storytelling for Business (TGS-2022011539 In-Person Class / TGS-2022011544 e-Learning Class)
  • Synopsis: In this course, through data simulations, activities, and projects, we will first learn how to ask the right questions from the prepared data and identify actionable insights. Then, we will learn the best practices for presenting data and insights together, and how to tweak narratives to suit different purposes and audiences.