Context
Design for America is a network of human-centered design studios tackling local social impact challenges. During my bachelor’s, the concepts of human-centered design and social entrepreneurship spoke deeply to me, but there were few opportunities where students could dive in & learn by doing. For this reason, I founded the Design for America studio at the University of Southern California.
SCOPE
This experience was a three-year intensive in organizational development and community partnerships, curriculum design, workshop and project facilitation, and all stages of the design cycle.
In this role, I curated human-centered design methods and lesson plans into an eight-week curriculum for project teams; cultivated 15+ industry and nonprofit partnerships in Greater Los Angeles; and facilitated introductory design thinking workshops for audiences including startup accelerator participants and the 2014-15 cohort of Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab Scholars.
Outcomes
Today, our project teams apply design principles to develop local solutions to community challenges such as income inequality, nutritional inequity, mental health, and homelessness. Our studio operates in partnership with the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab, Blackstone Launchpad & Spark SC.
Check out a studio overview that I designed and published, for a snapshot of our projects and ecosystem in 2015.
