One short sentence. That is all it takes for Anne Kirah to explain why she has decided to help build the first ever international programme to educate concept makers.

 

“I just love it when I see the twinkle in people’s eyes,” she says.

 

“I feel obliged to pass my knowledge on to other people. As an anthropologist I can act as a guide for companies and their employees. It is an honour to take part in helping companies remove their blinders and really understand people and what drives their aspirations and ambitions. Often employees have a hard time realizing the changes they need to make within themselves and their companies, but when they do – that is when I see that twinkle.”

 

Before Anne Kirah, 45, decided to help create the curriculum at 180º academy she served as a senior design anthropologist for the Microsoft Corporation – maintaining a human link to the machines so to speak. Kirah was responsible for global field research and participatory design and her primary focus was on future product innovation and people centered research for. At Microsoft she has worked on teams with in both the Windows and MSN divisions. Originally on a short leave from Microsoft, Anne Kirah made the decision during the process of building the academy to resign in order to dedicate herself fulltime to 180 academy.

 

Kirah, who joined Microsoft in 1999, previously worked as a research associate for Boeing, the world’s leading aircraft manufacturer. She has lived and worked extensively in Europe and Asia and won several research grants, fellowships and scholarships.

 

She holds an upper level graduate degree in social and cultural anthropology from the University of Oslo, Norway; a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Washington and an undergraduate degree in social and cultural anthropology, with minors in the sociology of education and developmental psychology from the University of Oslo, Norway.

 

Anne Kirah will be teaching ethnography, anthropology and pattern recognition – all of which is included in the collect phase of the 180 philosophy. She will also head the final examination in module 9.

 

 

 

A presentation of how 180 Academy prepares mid-caareer executives for concept making in a business envirobnment.  It is important for  managers of businesses to cultivate  a new mindset where empathy rather than strategy, cultural transformation, rather than control will help their organizations harness the opportunities that a fast track journey to the future and maximize returns on investment in design and innovation.

 

 

When serving a customer base than spans east to west, north to south, companies needs to embrace a new mindset that helps them grasp the reality of people they do not know.

 

Ann Kirah will share her insights from helping large corporations such as Microsoft understand the diversity of mindsets that exist within the communities of people in different parts of the world and discuss how in managing business and in managing innovatioon to develop a clear awareness of personal pre-assumptions and thus an open-minded notion that “I’m not the expert.” This includes:

 

• A willingness to go out of your comfort zone

• A willingness to learn with these people

• A willingness to build with these people

• Being humble and practicing the art of humility

• A willingness to be flexible and adapt to any given context

• A willingness to ’live’ in the question