Companies in every industry have adopted design thinking to offer fresh insight in functions from strategy to finance. BusinessWeek selected 39 master’s and MBA programs from North America, Europe, Asia, South America and Australia that significantly integrate design thinking and business. Students in these programs take classes in art, management and science, for example, and create projects in multi-disciplinary teams with students from other schools. They aim to use design for strategy rather than merely for aesthetics and may find jobs as design managers, researchers or business consultants. These 30 programs have formally established hybrid curricula [...]

In 2008, the Industrial Designers Society of America ran a new contest in Brazil and some of the winners were included in this year’s Top International Design Excellence Awards. Amazing design and innovation is taking place in Brazil and this slideshow of winners (Brazil placed third behind the US and Korea in the number of IDEA awards in 2008) shows the wide range of activity. Bruce Nussbaum highlights some of the work featured the 2008 awards [...]