El Pueblo Unido Program

In early 2018, the founding team of El Pueblo Unido Program (EPU) established a prototype exchange program between Escuela Francisco Manrique Cabrera (FMC), in Puerto Rico, and Design Tech High School in Silicon Valley. The exchange of students and staff gave participants a powerful immersive inter-cultural educational experience focused on sharing the Design Thinking problem solving method stewarded by Stanford University’s d.School. A remarkable side product of the exchange program is that Escuela FMC proposed and was approved, by the Puerto Rico Department of Education, to become the first Design Thinking Specialized (Magnet) school in Puerto Rico. As a result, EPU’s charter has grown to encompass supporting Puerto Rican public schools adoption of innovative programs that embrace some combination of the following four initiatives: Design Thinking Community engagement in school programs Peer mentoring School and Community Exchange The core of our program is the introduction of 3 two-week breaks (Intersession) from regular core academic instruction. During Intersession, students spend their mornings in Design Labs where they study the theory of Design Thinking and tackle themed Design Challenges (Hecho en Puerto Rico, for example). In the afternoons, students choose from a wide variety of Explorations classes (robotics, cosmetologia and farming, for example). These classes are led by professionals from the community with the support of school staff.