The ICB CDT have developed a new course on Human Transformation Studies in partnership with company We Are Human; experts in human factors.

Interactions between technologies and people are developing across all aspects of daily life. If you are undertaking research, creating a product or if you are an entrepreneur, people will affect your outcomes, your plans and ideas. We had to restrict this broad topic to focus on what we felt most directly related to ICB CDT students; healthcare, digitisation & AI, diagnostics and agrochemicals & AI.

We reached out to We Are Human, experts in human centred design and user research. We worked in partnership with them to develop the course and structure workshops, they used technology such as VR to demonstrate an experience of shopping with glaucoma and arthritic gloves to demonstrate the difficulty of self medicating with diabetes. We had guest speakers for every day of the 4-day course, who could speak to their experiences of dealing with human factors within the specific context of their businesses and demonstrating how broad those impacts were.

The course culminated in group presentations of their findings and how they might develop current products in the market. Students presented to a panel of different stakeholders. Throughout the 4 days, students stayed at Debden House and enjoyed spending evenings together as part of team building and group activities.

We had some brilliant feedback and look forward to running this course again next year!