http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emeg45edife/mert-iseri-26-and-yuri-malina-24/

We are thrilled that Yale’s Design for America will be presenting their design for humanitarian crisis at South by Southwest 2015 in Austin Texas. This project originated as a DFA partnership with FEMA in 2014 to design solutions to improve the experience of flood victims.

We are thrilled to be invited to present our research on the social technical work and resource exchange in crowdfunding at this year’s conference on Collective Intelligence 2015.

Congratulations to our Delta Lab students, Emily Harburg and Youngsong Kim for their Work In Progress acceptance at CHI titled “CrowdFound: A Mobile Crowdsourcing System to Find Lost Items On-the-Go” 

CrowdFound allows users to input lost item descriptions on a map and then sends notifications to users passing near tagged areas. To assess the system’s efficacy, they conducted interviews and user testing on CrowdFound. Their results show that users were able to find lost items when using a combination of the notification, map, and item description features. In addition, users were willing to deviate off path to look for lost items, particularly when exercising. Their findings also suggest socio-technical features to promote more effective on-the-go crowdsourced help on microtasks. This research builds CHI’s understanding of physical crowdsourcing as a tool for solving societal problems and suggests broader implications for utilizing mobile crowds.

Huge shout out to Jenna Leonardo and Katie Kirsch who founded Girls Driving for a Difference. Girls Driving for a Difference is a team of Stanford students using design thinking to empower middle-school girls across the United States to become leaders of social change, both within their local communities and beyond.

This Summer of 2015, Jenna, Katie, and team will be driving in an RV across America, visiting all-women’s communities (specifically leadership and summer camps for middle school girls), and coaching design thinking and leadership workshops. These workshops will give girls the tools, inspiration, and creative confidence to discover their purpose, enact social change in their communities, and envision their own dreams for someday changing the world.

More information here.

We are so proud of Design for America’s Luna Lights team who nailed their product pitch to their investors at the conclusion of the Healthbox incubator team in downtown Chicago. Way to go team!

I am thrilled for PhD students Daniel Lewis Rees and Anna Bethune as their papers “Helping Engineers Thrive: Feedback Systems for Ill-Defined Challenges,” and “Let’s Change Illinois Together: Youth Civic Engagement and New Media,” have been accepted for presentation at the 2015 AERA Annual Meeting.

The Wall Street Journal titled “Big Kickstarter Campaign Overwhelms Radiate Athletics” features Delta lab research on crowdfunding. Many project creators grossly underestimate time and effort needed to deliver products.

I am honored to have made the 2013-2014 Associated Student Government Faculty and Administration Honor Roll! Every year, the Association for Student Government asks Northwestern undergraduates to nominate faculty and administrators they feel have gone above and beyond to enrich our school’s academic experience. This year, they recognized my work. This may be the most proud that I have ever been to make an honor roll as I feel this one is really important.

We are thrilled for the Luna Lights team who was accepted into the HealthBox Incubator. Luna Lights goal is to help prevent falls among older adults.