On March 3, at the University of Split’s SPINIT Incubator, the NetHub healthcare technology business accelerator—in collaboration with the School of Medicine and the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture, and Geodesy—organized a Design Sprint workshop on the topic of Smart Ageing. During the workshop, experts from the fields of healthcare and construction, mentored by facilitator Doris Zalović from Aras Digital Products, contributed their ideas to generate professionally validated problems regarding elderly access to health and social services in underdeveloped areas of Split-Dalmatia County, as well as challenges faced by seniors in using urban environments. The Design Sprint process itself deserves a special look.
The Design Sprint is an intensive, phased process that uses design thinking to help teams define clear goals, validate assumptions, and decide on a roadmap for a product, service, or feature before development begins. It allows teams to verify—rather than guess—whether they are on the right track before investing significant resources into the development and market launch of a new asset. Essentially, it reduces business risk and provides the power to predict market viability before development costs are incurred. If a Design Sprint validates a risky idea, the payoff is significant; if it doesn’t, the “painful” realization prevents substantial unnecessary costs in developing a non-viable product. Beyond focusing on the end-user perspective rather than just technology, the most critical aspect of a Design Sprint is market testing to determine user need, ensuring the product is as focused as possible to attract its target audience.
Ivan Aras, digital designer and founder of the Split-based company Aras Digital Products, is well-versed in the details of this innovative process. His company uses design to influence the outcome of digital products, from conceptualization to final user-centered design. According to Ivan, unlike the Design Thinking process—which encompasses methods for identifying problems, prototyping, and testing and can last for months—a Design Sprint is focused on solving a very specific problem.
“This process is primarily intended for entrepreneurs who want to improve their existing business through expansion or digitalization, as well as for aspiring entrepreneurs with a business idea. The advantage lies in bringing together a group of individuals who are not competing but freely contributing to a solution. The challenges involve securing resources for the process and the subsequent processing of data, which doesn’t always guarantee the expected goal. Furthermore, a Design Sprint requires absolute focus on a single set problem. A few years ago, I used a Design Sprint to upgrade an existing offer for an American client who wanted a mobile app for food trucks. The Sprint helped us successfully determine how to realize the idea and led to a real product. Unfortunately, potential entrepreneurs in our region are often unfamiliar with these innovative ways of developing ideas; they usually just say they ‘need an improvement.’ The time for Design Sprints is yet to come for us,” says Ivan.
The Design Sprint workshop held with healthcare and construction experts represents a key preparatory activity for establishing the UniStart student entrepreneurship program. The workshop detected broad business problems within which students will develop their entrepreneurial ideas. Therefore, UniStart is intended for all University of Split students who wish to test themselves in the business world without having a predefined idea. By using the Design Sprint method, the program will guide students through defining an idea, its development, and an entrepreneurial mindset, making it unique in its approach to student entrepreneurship development.