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Almrott, Ceri; Perez, Santiago

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As product design education evolves, the focus has shifted from creating tangible objects to delivering comprehensive product-service systems. Achieving a truly human-centred approach in student practice requires rethinking how we educate future designers and engineers. This paper examines the development of a European Low-Tech Hackathon, where students worked within a specific context of human and technological constraints. The Hackathon challenged participants to create solutions with a minimal technological footprint, aligning with sustainability principles and the core values of Low-Tech. It offers a unique lens through which to explore how technological education must adapt to contemporary demands for product and service innovation. The Hackathon’s outputs were primarily service-based product concepts, each featuring a notable physical touchpoint that responded directly to the local community’s needs. The Hackathon approach demonstrates how inclusive design practices can be integrated into educational models to build an understanding of inclusivity and user-centredness. As “outsiders” to the community where the Hackathon was held, the students worked in multilingual, multicultural and multidisciplinary teams, adding complexity to their process. This outsider status highlighted the need for deep engagement with unfamiliar environments, prompting participants to question assumptions about resources, needs, and requirements. Ultimately, they developed solutions rooted in the specific human, social, and environmental contexts they encountered, using the lowest and most appropriate level of technology necessary to meet those needs. In addition, this paper explores the relationship between “dumb objects”—simple, non-technologically intense items—and smart systems. While much of contemporary design education focuses on the complexity of smart, interconnected products, the Low-Tech Hackathon presented a counter-narrative, showing that simple, accessible technologies can effectively solve complex problems, especially in underserved or resource-constrained communities. This reinforces the principle of appropriateness in design: choosing solutions that fit the context rather than defaulting to high-tech approaches. The action of choosing the appropriate technology to respond to specific needs carries a reflection process directly related to the role of technology in our lives and the need to develop educational frameworks that encourage techno-diversity. This Hackathon format illustrates a streamlined educational approach that empowers students to tackle real-world challenges without overwhelming them with the complexities of high technology. By prioritising simplified, context-appropriate solutions, the Hackathon allows students to engage with ecological, human-centred, practical challenges in a manageable framework. Through this experience, students are encouraged to critically assess their assumptions about resources and technology, preparing them to engage with both the practical and ethical dimensions of design. In advocating for hackathon-style learning experiences, this paper highlights the potential of such approaches to foster empathetic and ecologically focussed, human-centred design thinking. These experiences can drive a shift away from techno-solutionist interventions, guiding students toward contextually appropriate, sustainable, and human-driven outcomes. By embedding this model within design curricula, we can create a more inclusive, transdisciplinary, and responsive design education that meets the global challenges facing the next generation of designers.

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