Secret Project

Social Impact, Multimedia

Secret Project

An experimental education program. Lead by AIGA Medalist John Bielenberg, Secret Project uses ‘thinking wrong’ methodology to create transformative experiences for college students and young professionals through proposing creative solutions to partners’ social and business challenges.

UNITED STATES

Secret Project was launched in 2014 as an interdisciplinary program at California College of the Arts. It offers 2-day weekend design sprint called ‘blitz,’ partnering with Bay Area businesses and organizations. From 2015 to 2016, Secret Project offered a 7-day blitz annually, a college version of Project M, where students gather as a team and explore ways to utilize their creative skills as facilitating tools to bring positive impact to rural areas. Read what I learned from these experiences here.

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TAIWAN

Inspired by the days and nights at Secret Project, founding member Weiwei Hsu decided to bring ‘Think Wrong’ to Taiwan, partnering with Toucheng Leisure Farm in Yilan.

Secret Project Taiwan 2016

The summer of 2016, Weiwei Hsu, William Felker and I facilitated a 7-day blitz for the first time with 15 participants. The blitz includes interviewing, brainstorming, rapid-prototyping, presenting and simply having fun. Pumped with various fruitful moments, ‘Thinking wrong’ spirit was successfully passed to every participant.

To tell the experience in a rapid and compelling way, I initiated a ‘30-Second Daily Video’ challenge—editing a 30-second video every day that captures the highlights.

Secret Project Taiwan 2017

The idea of ‘thinking wrong’ secret project carries genuinely interests people. In Spring 2017, being sufficiently supported, Secret Project crew went back to Toucheng Leisure Farm and made things happen. Here’s a short video I made for a quick glance.

The project I was in charge of—Supergraphics—were large size Chinese character murals, hand-painted on the facade of the Think Wrong Labs containers.