On Friday, December 2nd, the cohort for this semester’s Rapid Innovation for Public Impact course delivered their final presentations to a room filled with sponsors and guests.
PUBAFRS 5620 Rapid Innovation for Public Impact, a course offered each semester, gives students the opportunity to work directly with organizations on challenges they are facing. Students are put into interdisciplinary teams based on their interests and are led through the human-centered design process to develop a solution by semester’s end.
This fall, challenge sponsors included a for-profit geospatial imaging company, BlackSky, the Ohio Department of Transportation, and the Missile Defense Agency in partnership with the NASA.
Challenges included:
- WHAT IF we could provide accessible, affordable, equitable, and sustainable electrified mobility to disadvantaged communities in Ohio?
- WHAT IF humanitarian aid and disaster recovery could be informed by rapidly deployed space imaging that delivers many images per day of specified locations?
- WHAT IF we could accelerate the equitable deployment of advanced air mobility (AAM) across Ohio by developing local policy guidelines and identifying community benefits and addressing challenges?
- WHAT IF we could evaluate the probability of tin whisker formation causing an electrical short that leads to critical impacts on hardware systems?
Students with backgrounds from integrated systems engineering, psychology, business, marketing, public affairs, and more formed the teams that took on these wicked challenges.
The final presentations were held in the Leadership Education Center in Page Hall. Students presented the story of their solutions from the stakes of the problem they had to solve, the ideas they had to solve it, and the solutions that survived hypothesis testing to be delivered to their customers.
Check out the 2-minute teaser videos for the solutions
Representatives from the challenge sponsors joined and were extremely impressed with the work the students completed throughout the semester.
“[My colleagues] have shared with me on several occasions that they’re very impressed with the work that both student teams are doing. Specifically, the EVB work links directly to future planned work for NEVI and provides DriveOhio with a great head start on upcoming tasks.”
In the end, students hope to come up with a solution that can be put into practice as soon as possible. Top Gun received incredible feedback from their sponsor with regards to readiness.
“In addition to sparking very valuable discussions, the prototype from Top Gun was so polished [my colleague] thought it was ready to launch!” their sponsor noted.
Next semester, the Rapid Innovation for Public Impact course is looking to recruit students for challenges around space structures, sustainable energy adoption, cyber-security adoption, and more. Students can take a look at the course website to learn more and can register for the course today!
