School of Design Thinking (SoDT) on March 25 held the second edition of “Design Spark Challenge 2026” (DSC 2026), a 24-hour immersive innovation challenge at 8012 FinTech Design Center™ (center dedicated to Design Thinking principles) in Chennai. The inauguration ceremony was held at Intellect Design Arena’s global headquarters in Chennai. A total of 120 participants from 24 colleges took part in the challenge to identify and address high-friction challenges within enterprise environments. Srikanth V, CEO of ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu, who was the Chief Guest of the ceremony.
At the core of the challenge was the integration of Design Thinking with Purple Fabric, Business Impact AI platform, reflecting how enterprises are combining structured thinking with AI to drive outcome-led innovation. Participants gained hands-on access to Purple Fabric to design AI-driven workflows capable of handling complex enterprise scenarios, including multi-step processes, data interpretation and automated decision-making.
Moving away from traditional academic problem statements, the challenge focused on organisational transformation, requiring participants to solve enterprise-grade problems across areas such as regulatory compliance, governance, career orchestration and global talent development.
Delivering the inaugural address, Srikanth V, CEO of ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu, said, “The transition from a student mindset to an ‘Enterprise Mindset’ is the biggest challenge in the current talent landscape. Design Spark Challenge 2026 by School of Design Thinking (SoDT) is a remarkable platform because it encourages participants to look at organisations as living, breathing systems. By solving these enterprise frictions, they are gaining a massive headstart in understanding how global industries actually function.”
In his speech, Dr. Anbu Rathinavel, Head of School of Design Thinking and Chief Design Officer of Intellect Design Arena, emphasised the human element: “True innovation lies at the intersection of human empathy and machine intelligence. One of the biggest challenges today is bridging the gap between academic learning and real-world enterprise problem-solving. Through our L.O.R.D. framework (Listen, Observe, Research/Read and Dialogue), participants learn to navigate organisational complexity and develop a deeper understanding of enterprise systems. By combining this thinking with platforms like Purple Fabric, Open Business Impact AI Platform, they can move beyond theory and apply AI as a strategic partner, enabling them to design intelligent, outcome-driven solutions to real-world enterprise challenges.”
Participants leveraged Purple Fabric to move beyond simple chatbot-based approaches and design intelligent, orchestrated workflows that handle complex enterprise processes, enabling data-driven decision-making and scalable outcomes.
Complementing this, Dr. Vinay Raj Menon, Head-Corporate HR & Learning & Development, Intellect, highlighted the importance of such initiatives in bridging the gap between academic learning and enterprise readiness, enabling participants to build critical problem-solving and execution capabilities. The challenge will conclude with a final pitch session where teams present their AI workflows to a jury of industry experts, evaluated on design logic, workflow sophistication and enterprise scalability.
