Hasso Plattner Institute of Design

The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (commonly known as d.school) is a design thinking institute based at Stanford University. The school is named after SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner and was founded by David M. Kelley and Bernard Roth founded the program in 2004.

History
The institute was founded by Stanford mechanical engineering professor David M. Kelley, Bernard Roth, Terry Winograd, and five other professors in 2004. The program integrates business, law, medicine, social sciences, and humanities with more traditional engineering and product design education.

The institute is named after Hasso Plattner, co-founder of SAP, who contributed $35 million towards its inception. The institute cooperates closely with its sister institute the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany.

According to The New York Times, the d.school has become one of the most highly sought academic programs at Stanford. To meet the demand, it is adding full courses and pop-up classes, which focus on more specific problems.

Products
The institute's products include Embrace, a low-cost alternative to neonatal incubators, and the d.light, an energy-efficient LED light now in use in some rural communities in Africa and Asia. The Pulse News Reader app was developed in a d.school class in 2010, and became the highest-selling mobile app in Apple's App Store.