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AIFM Hackathon Workshop: Design Thinking with Five Free AI Tools

· by AICoach.my · 2 min read

Google Meet grid of participants, some on camera and some with avatars, during the AIFM briefing and workshop, online, 4 October 2026

Some of us jump straight from a problem to a solution. This workshop was about the step in between.

On Sunday, 4 October 2026, Ricky Soo ran Workshop 4, AI Solution & Creativity Lab, for the AI Future Makers Bootcamp 2026 hackathon. It ran online. The theme was Design Thinking: understand people first, then build, test and learn.

Five Steps, Five Free AI Tools

Design Thinking has five steps, and each one got a free AI tool:

  • Empathize with Gemini Notebook. Upload interview transcripts and ask what people are really struggling with. Every answer comes with a quote you can check.
  • Define with FigJam AI. Sort pain points on sticky notes into themes, then write one clear “How might we…” question.
  • Ideate with Miro AI. Turn that question into a mind map with many ideas.
  • Prototype with Google AI Studio. Describe an app in one prompt and get a working version back.
  • Test with Maze. Give real users tasks and see where they get stuck.

The rule behind all five: AI drafts, sorts and builds fast, but you decide what matters, what is true and what to build.

One Problem, Start to Finish

The live demo took one real problem: know-how walking out the door when experienced staff resign. Three interviews, with a manager, a departing employee and a new joiner, became twelve pain points, six themes and around eighteen ideas. The top pick was an AI handover assistant. It asks leaving staff guided questions, writes a handover guide, then lets the successor ask it anything. The test tasks came straight from the interviews, like finding who to call at the port when a container is held.

Work that used to take a team weeks took one person and five free tools. The hackathon teams have not started yet, but they now have a way in. Whichever challenge they pick, from fairer hiring to keeping new staff engaged, they can run it through the same five steps and five tools.

To learn to build with AI tools like these, see the AI Innovator Program. For upcoming sessions, see the events page.

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