The Launchpad · Design Thinking Teacher Fellowship
Most first jobs teach you
to follow instructions.
This one teaches you to lead.
DT Fellows work full-time alongside founders and directors of ₹100–500Cr companies. Your first career shapes everything that follows. Most jobs give you tasks. Here, you solve problems, understand business context, and make your own decisions.
“Everyone at some point in life should work at DT.”
Feliza Dadachenji, Maths Asst Professor | DT Fellow, 2020
We don't look for the best candidate. We look for the most curious.
Design Thinking Teacher Fellowship · 3 rounds · 96 hours · No interviews until you've seen how we work.
The big picture
The bridge from strategy to execution.
Every company decides what to do, then does it. The gap between the two is where growth dies. A DT Fellow is the bridge.
GoalThe MD
The number the company must hit.
StrategyThe function head
The plan to hit it, tuned as results come in.
The PlanThe DT Fellow
You build the play that actually works, then step back.
SupervisionTeam leads
Keeps the work on track, week by week.
WorkThe reps
Run the workflow. Send the output.
What V3 does
Find the play. Months of experiments until you find what actually moves the number.
Codify it into PDGMS. The system DT builds. Your play becomes a workflow it can run.
Step back. The platform runs it from then on. The team makes the calls that need a human.
Prove the winning play once. Fewer hires, higher revenue.
The deck
The company, in nine slides.
The same deck we show investors, minus the numbers we keep private. Use the arrows to move through it.
विघ्ननायक · Vignanayaka
The one who removes obstacles to knowledge.
Not obstacles in the world. Obstacles in how you see. Indian philosophy names the capacity to clear the path between you and understanding. That capacity lives in three qualities — the same ones we look for in every DT Fellow.
Made in India for the world.
PDGMS — transforming people, growing businesses.
Three Values
What we look for — in life and at work.
You own the outcome, not just the process.
The Cook
Two cooks make the same dish. Cook A follows the recipe exactly — 2 tsp salt, 350°F, 45 minutes. It comes out edible. Cook B tastes at every step, adjusts the salt because this brand is stronger, checks the oven because hers runs 10 degrees hot, pulls it out early because the edges are browning. Same recipe. Cook B's food is better — not because she's more talented, but because she's paying attention to what's actually happening instead of following instructions.
The Directions
You're driving to a new city. Driver A follows the GPS turn by turn — "turn left in 200 meters." Arrives fine. But when the GPS reroutes around construction, they panic — they don't know which direction they're heading or why. Driver B glanced at the map first: "I'm heading south, the city is by the river, the highway cuts through the center." When the GPS reroutes, they adjust — because they know where they're going, not just what to do next.
The Flat Tire
Two people get a flat tire on a highway. Person A calls roadside assistance and waits 90 minutes. Person B checks the trunk — spare tire, jack, wrench. Watches a 2-minute video. Changes it in 15 minutes. Not because Person B is a mechanic — but because they assumed they could figure it out before assuming they couldn't.
These aren't interview answers. They're ways of being.
Why DT
Two kinds of youngsters.
India produces one. DT hires the other.
Type A · Employee Mindset
Impress. Fit into existing systems. Follow instructions. India's placement system is built to produce and hire Type A.
Type B · Intrapreneur Mindset
Creative. Innovative. Make decisions. Own outcomes. Passion-driven problem solvers.
What Fellows Do
Decision-making power in their 20s.
Most people reach decision-making roles by their 40s. DT Fellows work alongside CEOs and Directors of ₹100–500Cr companies, driving organisational transformation and AI, from their very first full-time role.
Sravan Kumar
Chief of Staff
Pharma company, ₹200Cr+
Works directly with the MD (NASA scientist founder). Brought in AI that cut purchase-to-dispatch from 3 days to 1. Runs decisions that change how the factory floor operates.
Joined as: BBA fresher
Shagun Mishra
AI Programs Lead
India’s largest probiotic manufacturer
Led a 20-member team. Shipped 58 software modules as a fresher in 2023 — before AI tools existed. Now leads AI Programs at a company present in 60+ countries.
Joined as: BTech fresher
Jayaraj
Engagement Lead
Multiple DT client companies
Works with company Directors on growth strategy and execution. Drives organisational transformation across manufacturing and services companies.
Joined as: BTech fresher
The Architects
Tarun Ayitam
15 years of designing the scientific method. Alumnus of IISER Pune (Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science) and TEDx speaker. Tarun encoded 32+ company implementations into PDGMS AI Platform to lower CAC and drive employee ownership.
HERITAGE
Who's been in this room
This programme has been running in different forms since 2011. Fifty participants from six countries have been through it. These are the people whose work and questions shaped what the programme is today.
Raghu Seelamsetty
Founder, Escape Velocity
2017
Nastaran Bisheban
CTO, KFC Canada
2021
Dave Snowden
Founder & CSO, Cognitive Edge
2021
Dr. Michael Lissack
President, American Society for Cybernetics
2021
Abhinav Gupta
AVP Innovation, Broadridge
2023
Humberto Schwab
Founder, Socratic Design Academy
2020
Dr. Matti Itkonen
Cultural Philosopher, University of Jyväskylä
2021
Kashyap Kompella
Hyderabad Chair, StartupGrind
2017
Jayesh Ranjan
IAS Officer, Govt of Telangana
2017
Dr. David Willows
Director of Advancement, University of Brussels
2021Designations are as on the date when the participant attended the dialogue.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
The work in action.
Roundtable
Hack Your MVP
Live session with practitioners and founders.
Socratic Dialogue
Darwin Day
Jury-style debate on scientific and business questions.
Case Files
A 3-day purchase to dispatch cycle. Every department did their job, but the handoffs were unowned.
The company mapped the actual flow and redesigned the protocol between departments, setup Microsoft CoPilot AI automations.
“3 days became 1 day, recovering 200+ days of capacity per year”
The Proof
DeepThought helped us in deploying and managing high performance elastic teams. DT runs continuous improvement, which means Project2 is better than Project1 and Project3 is better than Project2
Pharma & Biotech Transformation
Before you start — read this
Your diagram gets a few seconds.
Just like an answer sheet.
Picture an examiner with 300 papers stacked in front of them. Yours gets seconds, not minutes. The marks don’t go to whoever wrote the most. They go to the one answer that is clearly their own. Your hand-drawn diagram is that answer sheet.
You draw it by hand
On paper. No printout.
We glance, like an examiner
Seconds, not minutes.
It earns the marks, or it doesn't
Your thinking, or ChatGPT's.
Here’s the test we actually run
ChatGPT
4 seconds📄 [pasted: this entire assignment page]
Here is your diagram: Problem → build a dashboard → train the team → done.
If that is your diagram too —
where is your thinking?
And ChatGPT will hand you confident, wrong answers. We expect you to argue with it, test the logic, and catch what doesn’t hold. The thinking is the part it cannot do for you.
What ChatGPT gave back
“Problem → build a dashboard →
train the team → done.”
Word for word, what ChatGPT said.
Could be any company, anywhere.
Reads like everyone else’s.
Your own thinking
I asked it back: would a dashboard
actually get used? It wouldn’t —
the last one didn’t.
So I drew what really blocks the work.
Specific to this problem. By hand.
We want to meet you.
Most pages we get are exactly what ChatGPT returns. We can tell in seconds. The few we shortlist did the digging, caught its mistakes, and drew something it never could. Where is the thinking? That is the entire test.
How To Approach This
This is an open-book exam.
Books, internet, ChatGPT — all allowed. Finding an answer is not the test. Everyone can do that now. The test is whose thinking ends up on the answer sheet: yours, or the machine's.
Below is the actual work. Every box is something you hand in. If you can't tick it, you skipped that part — and we will see the gap. Garbage in, garbage out.
A · Research
What you produce
AI rule
Use AI to find and explain sources. It does not count as a source. A fact counts only if you can name its real origin.
B · Reasoning
What you produce
AI rule
Use AI to list options and poke holes. Choosing which is right is yours, in your words. If your B answers match ChatGPT’s first reply, you didn’t reason — you copied.
C · The Artifact
What you hand in
AI rule
None of this is AI-generated. Your hand, your voice, your code, your words.
A real example, from this page
This very section was written with an AI. Here is what the person typed back to it, draft after draft, until it stopped being generic:
The AI never once knew, on its own, that it was being generic. A person had to know — and had to keep rejecting until the work became concrete, the boxes above. That rejecting is the thinking. That is the job.
Why this matters
Paste this page into ChatGPT and submit what it returns, and you cannot produce A1, A2, B2, B5, or C2 — they do not exist unless a person did the work. That is how we read a submission in one minute: we look for the boxes a machine can't fill.
Selection Process
3 parts. One assignment. Everything on this page.
Three rounds. Rounds 1 and 2 are complete questionnaires on this page, design thinking practice, then the pedagogy that powers it. Round 3 is a conversation about your portfolio, your exposure, and how you teach.
Design Thinking Foundations
Four cascading analyses. One synthesis scenario. Interesting wrong answers beat correct ones.
Five Pedagogies That Power Design Thinking
Socrates, Feynman, Mazur, Dienes, Polya. Five ways understanding enters a head.
The Interview
Your portfolio, your exposure, your compassion. A conversation, not a quiz.
This process is rigorous and most applicants are rejected. Proceed only if challenges fuel you.
Your Journey
3 rounds. 96 hours. Step by step.
The clock starts when you send the consent message on Internshala.
Three rounds. Rounds 1 and 2 are complete questionnaires on this page, design thinking practice, then the pedagogy that powers it. Round 3 is a conversation about your portfolio, your exposure, and how you teach.
Rounds 1 and 2 are due within 96 hours of consent. Round 3 is scheduled after shortlisting. Submit on Internshala chat.
This questionnaire draws from Stanford's d.school (founded 2004 by David Kelley), Robert McKim's visual thinking tradition (1973), and the Toyota Production System's root cause methodology (1950s). You don't need to have read any of it — every question carries its own context.
Part 1
Round 1 of 3Design Thinking Foundations
Four Analysis sections build your understanding of design thinking through cascading reasoning — not definitions. The Synthesis section tests whether you can coordinate multiple workstreams under real constraints. Interesting wrong answers are valued more than correct answers.
Work through the four tabs in order: read the context, study the reframing example, absorb the sprint scenario, then answer the questionnaire — 20 cascading questions, 4 QFDs, and 5 synthesis tasks. The questions cascade: each builds on the one before it. Answer in order.
Read how this questionnaire works, where it comes from, and how you'll be evaluated — before answering anything.
The Scenario
Click each section to expand. Read everything before answering anything.
Part 2
Five Pedagogies That Power Design Thinking
Socrates, Feynman, Mazur, Dienes, Polya. Five ways understanding enters a head.
Part 3
The Interview
Your portfolio, your exposure, your compassion. A conversation, not a quiz.
Commitment
What we ask. What we invest.
This is a full-time commitment. Proceed only if you can dedicate the required time and energy.
Schedule
9:30 AM – 6:00 PM
Monday – Saturday
Duration
12 months minimum
Full-time fellowship
Compensation
₹55,000–₹65,000/month
Teaching roles
L&D Investment
₹5,000/month
DT invests in your growth
Location
Hyderabad
Experience: Proven DT portfolio required
Internet
High-speed required
Stable for video calls
Rules of Engagement
AI policy. Per part.
Part 1 & 2: Research & Writing
Use AI tools freely for research, learning, and drafting. Set guardrails against hallucination.
Hand-drawn Diagram
Must be drawn by hand on paper. Not digital, not AI-generated. 30+ nodes: what you learnt, what beliefs changed, what you realized.
All Communication with DT
We want YOUR thinking, not a language model's.
Consent to Proceed
Before starting, you'll reply on Internshala with:
“I understand that:
- The selection process is long, rigorous, and most applicants are not selected.
- I may be rejected even after significant effort.
- I will remain professional in all communication.
- I will not use LLM/AI tools in the chat thread.
- I will complete the assignment within 48 hours.”
FAQs
Common questions. Clear answers.
Open Roles
Pick your path into the DT Fellowship.
Each role has a unique Round 1 assignment. The selection experience (rounds, mentorship, the work) is the same.
The Launchpad
Other jobs give you a title.
This one gives you a seat at the table.
Sravan went from BBA graduate to Chief of Staff. Shagun shipped 58 modules as a fresher. They weren't trained for it. They did the work, alongside founders, on real problems, with real stakes.
“Everyone at some point in life should work at DT.”
Feliza Dadachenji, Maths Asst Professor | DT Fellow, 2020
We don't look for the best candidate.
We look for the most curious one.
Challenges should fuel you, not frustrate you.