Our Verizon $15,000 Validation
Finding a MBA that suits a digital animal (as I once was called in my last role) and ex entertainment exec like me was a lengthy process. One of the reasons I chose Cornell Tech was because of the large chunk of practical projects that was apart of the syllabus and the types of companies that work in partnership with students to tackle real life business problems.
During the fall semester I worked alongside an engineer, a data scientist, as well as a designer from Parsons School to work on a tricky challenge posed by AOL — “How might we deliver content in a smart connected home to create a seamless and entertaining experience.” As an avid Huffington Post and TechCrunch reader (both AOL properties) I was thrilled to work within a cross functional team and have 3 months to think about how we could shift content consumption for the future.
Inspiration
Our first thoughts was this is a meaty challenge, our second thought was we wanted to really take chances in this safe, supportive space of Cornell Tech and produce something cutting edge and truly visionary.
We were inspired by recent products such as Amazon’s Alexa and the Echo Dot and encouraged by future forward references like Minority Report or this. Unlike a large chunk of our class, we decided not to do an app but instead take a chance to visualize a hardware product that could turn any large surface such as ceilings, tables, walls, etc into a screen. Furthermore the aim is to have the device personalise content from AOL portfolio of websites and cater it to individuals through human identifiers, such as gender or age range.
Why would we want to do this?
We initially thought about a common time for us all when we digest content and landed on the frequent scenario of when we first wake up in the morning and reach for our phone. Content such as entertainment gossip, news and sports results can keep a person fixated on their device in their beds for a lot longer than they may intend. Our theory is it would be much more fun, forward thinking and seamless if the content could follow you around the home using a network of our smart home device — IRIS.
Throughout the fall, we struggled at times as a group to rapid prototype a physical product to have something tangible for our Sprint presentations like the rest of our class. However, we were encouraged through our AOL company champion and key faculty members that we were doing something unique and it wouldn’t be easy to accomplish due to the many stages of the ideal product. We were advised to tell our story through design thinking storytelling and prototype videos alongside our Raspberry Pi, camera and projector mock up.
We narrowed down our thesis and for our final class presentation, we proved the power of a network of IRIS devices, by showing that if a person was to move from their bed to the bathroom and then to the kitchen, that multiple devices in a home will detect the movement. We showcased that content would be shown on the ceiling of the bedroom and move to the shower curtain and then the kitchen table.
Validation
Towards the end of the semester, we applied to the Verizon NYC Media Lab who made a call to NYC university teams to fund future thinking projects within various verticals including VR, IoT and the category we entered — Conversational Interfaces. Through a series of interviews, we won $15,000 and the support of the Verizon Innovation team to build out a prototype over the course of the next few months. This was great validation for us to end the semester with.
As one of just 11 teams, we are excited to be selected and eager to change the realities of many smart connected homes.
