On March 12th, I had the pleasure of participating in the Bits + Blocks Makeathon at the one and only IDEO in San Francisco! I was amongst the 80+ participants selected out of 270 applicants, so it was already an honor to be able to participate. The grand prize for this makeathon is an 8-week summer fellowship at the Bits + Blocks coLAB at IDEO. 

I arrived bright and early at 8am to find that I've been assigned to Team 15. With the table full of post-its & sharpies (the only tools you really need for innovation!) and with a hearty breakfast in my stomach, I was ready to start hacking the day away. 

Our design prompt was to design at device for the year 2066. In our first exercise, we each had 5 minutes to brainstorm how technology might be different in the year 2066, and how it would impact our lives. 

After the 5 minute brainstorm session, everyone in the group shared their ideas. We all had ideas around a more seamless integration with technology: one member more focused on changing the whole coffee shop experience, and another on a smart water bottle, but we all had pretty similar ideas. Other members had ideas about changing the way we interact with society, whether it's changing how we wait in line at the bank, or how we interact with strangers we meet walking down the street. ​We decided that we wanted to create a project that focuses on building interpersonal relationships. 

Because it's the year 2066, we decided to take advantage of potentially available technology of nanobots. Nanobots are promising tiny machines for the future of healthcare, as they can deliver medicine to areas we currently can't. 

Today we had our first-ever meeting for the +Acumen Human-Centered Design course! 4 of us ended up showing up at Impact Hub Oakland for the meeting, which isn't too bad of a turnout! Just the right number of people for the ultimate design team... granted that we stick to the entire course.  We got right down to business and scheduled all of our seven meeting dates for the next two months. I'm very excited for the commitment everyone's putting in from day one and for the potential collaborations as we progress through the course. Two of us are amateur UX designers, and the other two have a background in education, so I can't wait to see what great ideas we come up with!  

Go team! 

Back in January, I found out about the +Acumen Course on Human-Centered Design through the XX+UX Google+ Group. I was extremely excited for this course for a number of reasons: 

1. I still aspire to learn the ways of UX/UI Design, and would like to learn things the right way. 
2. It's IDEO.org! It's a nonprofit born out of the super amazing IDEO. So why not learn from the best? 
3. I want to take on a project where I can actively participate in the community to bring about social change while becoming a better designer. 

I initially tried get a group together, but soon enough did I find how difficult it was to start a group where we would be working somewhat remotely, especially for an intensive course like this one. So that was the end of that.  

Then last month, a little message popped up in my inbox from the Hylo community over at Impact Hub Oakland. Someone announced that the course was starting up again soon and that she's looking for a group of people to take the course with:   

I finally have the opportunity to take this course with others again, and in a place I'm already familiar with! So of course, I jumped right on that thread, along with a few others. We'll be having our first meeting tomorrow and I can't wait! 

Stay tuned for updates from my journey into this course!