Winners of The Do School Innovate NYC Challenge

The ELab is proud to announce that three New School students: Vanya Mittal, Carina Nieves and Jason Gonzalez, won the Do School Innovate NYC challenge and will be participating in their social innovation program with NYC EDC and 17 other university fellows from across NYC in the coming months. Here is what a few of them had to say:

Vanya Mittal

First year graduate student in the Strategic Design and Management master’s program at Parsons The New School for Design

How did you find the challenge? What was your participation like?

I came to know about the Innovate NYC Fellowship program at one of the The Provocateur’s Series help by School of Design Strategies. The thought that I could be a part of a team that will experiment and design new ways to cultivate and help non-profit organizations and social enterprises in the city that never sleeps, sounded interesting to me. I believe to foster great ideas and businesses starts with having the right environment, team, mentors and local connections and therefore was motivated to participate in the Innovate NYC Challenge. We had to submit a written application describing our passion and contribution towards the goal of the program, about our interest in the shared space challenge followed by a personal interview with the Managing Director of The DO School. After the kick-off event, twenty student-social entrepreneurs were selected from across 10 institutions of higher education in New York City.

What are your expectations and your next steps?

I expect to find the opportunity that would involve infusing learning with the newest design thinking methods and technologies.I am passionate about understanding the significance of business models and hope to explore its connections with business strategy and innovation management. I believe I can contribute to the diversity that is the non-profit sector in New York City. The next step would be putting my learnings – building upon successful and sustainable business models and to develop a revolutionary solution for entrepreneurs with a very strong focus on community, network and relationships – into actions.

Tell us more about the challenge and the offer you won!

The Shared Resource Challenge is given by The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NY- CEDC) to help strengthen and amplify the impact of social entrepreneurship and non-profit organizations in New York City. Over the period of seven months, along with 19 other student-social entrepreneurs I will be working with experts and stakeholder communities to explore the available resources at disposal, and develop and implement a hands-on-creative-solution to the most pressing challenge of shared resources. I won the opportunity to learn and experiment in a real-life situation that rather than making a developed idea more attractive to consumers, how we need to create ideas that better meet the needs of the consumers. A lesson that will teach me to be strategic rather than just tactical.

Do you think the ELab has been of support to you in this journey?

Honestly, I got interested more into the challenge of The Shared Resource because of being a team member and the design visualizer of the Parsons Entrepreneurial Lab (The Parsons ELab). Parsons Elab is based on a distributed model and deeply believe in the value of co-creation. Partnering with influent co-working spaces and important organizations who supports entrepreneurship to deliver a collaborative experience, ELab helps graduate students in transitioning them from students to entrepreneurs. The concept of Co-working was new to me before going ELab, and while working with and assisting my senior Samar in researching around incubations in New York, I found it really exciting and challenging. I would especially like to mention Prof Rhea, who really motivated me to explore the opportunity and supported me all through.

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Carina Nieves

Third year graduate student in the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy studying nonprofit management at The New School

How did you find the challenge? What was your participation like?

I found the challenge through the Career SuccessLink website. We will be starting in January, but thus far the two events were very interesting.

What are your expectations and your next steps?

My expectation for the Do School Innovate NYC program is to collaborate with my fellow NYC university students and make an innovative solution to the shared resource challenge we must address.

Tell us more about the challenge and the offer you won!

I will be attending monthly meetings Jan to May and then for 3 weeks in June we will be working together. There is more info on the program site: http://thedoschool.org/blog/university-programs/shared-resource-challenge/

Do you think the ELab has been of support to you in this journey?

I have never heard of the elab until I met the Director, Rhea Alexander, at the Do-a-thon event. I would love if there can be a partnership with Parsons and Milano for future courses. I feel students don’t know what is happening in other schools, so they can’t engage their peers. One weekly roundup of events could help this disconnect between schools.

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Jason Gonzalez

How did you find the challenge? What was your participation like?

I found this challenge through an email sent to my New School account. After filling out an application on TheDoSchool.org website, I was interviewed and shortly thereafter informed that I was chosen as one of the fellows. Thus far, my participation has consisted of a “Do-a-Thon,” which was an ideation session with students and professionals from the tri-state area. We were divided into groups and for several hours we brainstormed solutions around the Shared Resource Challenge, presented by the New York Economic Development Corporation. We learned new techniques for ideation and developed some tangible solutions to the challenge.

What are your expectations and your next steps?

My expectations are to finish with a sustainable and scalable solution to the Shared Resource Challenge. My ultimate objective is to formulate a solution that can be implemented immediately and have lasting impact in the non-profit sector. Furthermore, on a personal level I expect to increase my skill-set in and around ideation, prototyping, journey and stakeholder mapping, idea implementation, and measurement of impact. The next steps include a meeting on January 24, 2016, followed by regular monthly meetings until June 2016. From June 6th – 24th, I will participate in daily workshops, which serve as the capstone of the program. During this time, the fellows will work collaboratively to co-create tangible solutions to the Shared Resource Challenge.

Tell us more about the challenge and the offer you won!

The Shared Resource Challenge is given by The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) to help amplify the impact of non-profit organizations and social enterprises. The goal is to address one of these mission-driven businesses’ most pressing challenges: access to affordable space and resources, such as back-office support, high-level strategic counsel, and technology infrastructure. The fellows are tasked with developing an innovative product or service that improves access to critical resources for non-profits and social enterprises in New York City.

Do you think the ELab has been of support to you in this journey?

Yes, the ELab has been supportive of me throughout this journey. In fact director Rhea Alexander was one of the mentors in the “Do-a-Thon” and I was able to communicate my ideas to her and get her insightful feedback. In the future and throughout the duration of this fellowship, I plan to reference the ELab to increase my skill set toolkit.

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Read more on the Innovate NYCs website. http://thedoschool.org/blog/university-programs/shared-resource-challenge/

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Learn about the ELab mentorship program and 12 month Fellowship Incubator Program on the website, and stay tuned and follow us on social media!