What We’ve Been Up To This Summer

This summer the +Impact Design Lab has been hard at work, using all the virtual collaboration tools available to move projects forward for long term impact. Our focus has been on nurturing a project from last year’s course, supporting a community of innovators from the broader U-M community, and sharing our learnings on Medium.

Consistent with our values, at the beginning of the summer the +Impact Design Lab recruited and selected an interdisciplinary team of student fellows to work on our priorities. One of the core tenants of the studio is that we believe that interdisciplinary teams are more innovative and impactful than teams from just one single discipline. Justin Wood (MSW/MBA), Elizabeth Sofranek (MBA), and Lucy Jiang (MSI) joined the studio team and since, it’s been a whirlwind of ideas and creative discussion.

We wanted to share some quick updates on our work as we head into the fall.

Project Incubation

A big idea that we have been working to answer over the past 3 months: how might we mobilize U-M students to acknowledge and use their social capital to address racial justice issues centered around career opportunities?

We have been researching, interviewing, and testing ideas to address this very important question. We are committed to the work of dismantling the structures of systemic racism, advancing racial justice in America, and building an equitable and sustainable future. We plan to launch our beta product by September 2020. Stay tuned as we will be looking for students to participate in our beta launch.

Portfolio Projects

We have also been working to support a portfolio of projects from the broader U-M community. We have helped these projects reach the next level of scale and impact — whether that be prototype refinement, customer discovery, business development, or product/market fit. Here’s a look at the projects/ideas we have been supporting this summer:

• Honesti is a one-stop-shop wellness platform that allows students to join anonymous support groups within their school, chat anonymously with peer listeners who attend their school and immediately access personalized resources. Hosesti is looking to launch its beta product by the start of the new school year.
• EQuity Social Venture (ESV) provides professional services related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, using the lens of emotional intelligence. This summer ESV landed its first couple of paying customers, reached hundreds of people with its free webinars, and completed the first implementation of core curriculum for an incoming cohort of MSW students.
• Waterwise is a web-based solution that accumulates water quality data and resources into one, easy-to-use platform. This summer the team has been refining its prototype and they look to release a beta product for use by the end of 2020.

Medium Journal

The +Impact Studio team has also been honing our writing skills. We created this Medium journal to share our insights, success stories, and failures with the broader community. Please check back here regularly for more posts related to our work.

If you are interested in getting involved with the studio, please email us at impactstudio@umich.edu.