Veronika Petrova

Who am I

Master in: design research, ethnography, design thinking

Focus on: digital facilitation, training design and delivery, workshop design

Number of trainings: > 20

Number of sprints: > 10

Industries: banking, telecom, consulting, interior design

I am Veronika and I want to know more about you. I am a design researcher. I love speaking with people, understanding their ways of doing things and their needs. Co-creation is one of my passions, ever since I saw how powerful it can be through the stories of my teachers of Cultural Anthropology in Université Lumière in Lyon. Fascinated by the ways the analog and digital interlace, I decided to take a degree in Human-Computer Interaction, so as to be able to understand it even better. A firm believer in the benefits of gamification, I try to spice things up whenever it is relevant.

I came back to Bulgaria after my studies, because of a deep drive to share my passion for developing people-centered solutions and holistic end-to-end experiences in my home country.

My three most important professional projects

“Lieu d'Être” - a co-creative urban performance, that took place as part of Plovdiv - European Capital of Culture 2019. As a mediator there, I worked closely with all of the stakeholders, to build an engaging performance - so much for the co-creators, as for the public.

Being part of the research team for an office space with distributed teams that spend there only half of their time. The office is no longer only a physical space and we managed to see how the digital one should support it to help employees deliver their best work.

Designing a platform that gamifies travel experience.

My biggest failure and lessons learned

In my master studies, I decided to follow a double curriculum, so as to study all of the things I was passionate about (being Human-Computer interaction and Mediation). With a bit of a struggle, I passed all my tests - and then the time came to write my dissertations. I wanted to make the second one perfect, but I was already concentrating on the next step of my journey. Needless to say, I never finished the dissertation.

The lesson learned: "Done is better than perfect. Do one step at a time. Sometimes you need to let go of a goal, to achieve a bigger one."

On a Sunday I get up early to...

greet the sun as it rises, read a chapter of an inspiring book and make my hands dirty with a DIY project .