Abstract
Design thinking is one of the notable keywords about innovation as a way to generate unprecedented business ideas, products, services, policies, and so on. Since design thinking has been gradually acknowledged among universities and industries in the United States, a few universities have launched design thinking programs to foster innovation designers who are capable to raise innovations in industries. In addition, a new type of consulting firm, design consulting firm, has been emerging in the US; design consulting firms hire innovation designers so that they can promote their clients' innovation. By sorting out the competencies of innovation designers from these universities and firms, this paper describes the mainstream of developing and utilizing innovation designers in the US. Conversely, design thinking is still a very new idea in Japan and it has recently become a boom in the part of universities and industries. However, the intrinsic value of this new idea should be more studied and digested.
