http://www.aasthabhargava.com 

@BhargavaAastha

Enhancing situational awareness for Fire Officers with better tools to manage incidents and personnel.

As Firefighters enter burning structures to save lives, Incident Commanders work behind the scenes to ensure their safety and successfully resolve incidents. In these time-sensitive and life-threatening environments, Commanders find their attention splintered. Overwhelmed by simultaneously juggling of tasks, they are often required to make quick decisions without adequate information.

Insight is a platform designed to allow Commanders to focus more on management and less on tools. Firefighters wear sensors to track their location, heath status, and performed activities, enabling them to focus on extinguishing fires and rescuing people, and less on radio communications. A dashboard alerts the Commander when challenges arise to expedite decision making. 

peer-out.org 

@amywutoo

A service for teens to explore their identity through mentorship and shared experiences.

Teens today have overpacked schedules. While much is asked of them from extra-curricular activities to preparing for college, some, depending on socioeconomic standing, may lack resources to obtain a fulfilling education. Youth programs try to supplement these gaps in the system, but there is a disconnect between the initiatives and teens.

Peer gives teens autonomy outside of their home and school life and help them develop a sense of self. It comprises three tracks: look, find, and do. In the look track, teens are connected to mentors through videos and social media. In the find track, teens can dive into a particular field of study to see different roadmaps on how to get there. And finally, in the do track, teens sign up for different youth opportunities, such as free workshops, community service, or internships within their community in order to explore their interests. 

thesis.lilstories.com 

@lilrobindesign 

https://youtu.be/LaCU4o7im5Y

A storytelling framework for young children to create, collaborate, and express themselves in the physical and digital world.

Public elementary schools today focus on skill-based learning to meet standardized test requirements. There is no more time for play or creativity.

Li’l Stories allows elementary school teachers to do both—teach the skills of reading and writing and foster creativity. Children love stories and use them to make sense of the world. When creating stories around content they have learned in school or at home, they are strengthening and building upon what they have learned. 

Li’l Stories is a flexible system that can be integrated into the classroom in different ways. It utilizes stories as a learning tool and helps teachers teach English Language Arts in a fun and engaging way. They can reach different types of learners through the visual and oral expressions of storytelling. Young children move fluidly between creating in the physical world, to capturing and sharing in the digital.

@you_dami

By Us is a collaborative mobile tool for travelers and their companions to capture and share their travel experiences and precious memories.

By Us is an easy-to-use sharing tool that allows you and your travel companion to log every memory—from videos to captioned snapshots—in one place. It affords a more collaborative way to capture and share their travel experiences and precious memories. Also, the tool encourages users to create with friends on making their own unique travel journal. By combining a customizable yet minimal setup pairing you and your travel companion, By Us offers a more meaningful travel experience, and an illustrated story to share long after the journey.

An interface platform that extends our digital experiences into the physical environment we live in.

Our phones are powerful computers that know a lot of information about us. Our interaction, however, with them is limited to tapping on a small rectangular screen. 

By fusing projector and motion-sensing technology with the processor and information stored in our phones, Rosie transforms the architecture around us into a fully interactive space. It learns from us and adapts to provide us with more relevant information at the appropriate time and place.

www.yoonhanna.com/ourbooks

@petithanna

A platform to discover and share knowledge through exchanging books with friends.

We currently live in an age of information overload. With limited attention, selecting what and who we spend our time with becomes more valuable.

Ourbooks facilitates the exchange of books, sharing thoughts, and building relationships. Discover new areas and topics of curiosity through people you care about.

http://jeffreygochman.com/ 

A device for your dog’s collar that helps people discover and connect with other dogs and owners in their community.

Dogs are social creatures. Meeting other dogs is a highly important part of their life, just as meeting other people is an important part of ours. Well-socialized dogs tend to be friendlier and less fearful. Getting to know different dogs can be difficult, especially with sporadic one-time encounters. There is no easy way to turn one-time interactions into a relationship.

Pack tracks your walks, who your dog meets, for how long and builds a list of your dogs closest friends. By creating a community, Pack allows owners and walkers to know when friends are around without revealing the owners personal information. This helps provide you and your dog with a support system.

www.lukestern.com

@lukesternum

A map-based platform to discover and create real-time, searchable information about your city. 

For thousands of years, maps have enabled humans to navigate and understand space. In their earliest forms, maps charted stars and simple landscape features to develop awareness of their creator’s surroundings. From cave walls, to stone tablets, to paper, and now to digital devices, maps have been consistently updated to capture and display information relevant to our daily lives. Therefore, as our lives and our environment become more dynamic, so must our maps. 

Cities are dynamic, but maps still struggle to capture how fast a city can change and the type of information sought by its occupants. As a map-based platform to discover and create real-time, searchable information about places and things in your city, Turf does just that. By leveraging the knowledge and experience of the community, Turf creates an inclusive, interactive, and real-time view of your surroundings. Turf reshapes a tool that has guided us for thousands of years for use in our contemporary cities.

www.leroytellez.com

@leroytellez

A mobile app that learns your patterns and behaviors to make planning between you and your friends simple and collaborative.

How can technology help us to preserve our close friendships? Our mobile devices know so much about our lives and the relationships we hold close; like when and what we do, and even how often we see each other. Yet with all this information, our devices don’t seem to be getting any smarter, especially when it comes to planning events with our friends. So how can technology learn from our routines, and adapt to our lives?

Moment is a mobile app that makes planning between you and your friends simple and collaborative by learning your patterns and behaviors like: the things you most frequently do, who you see most often, the types of places you visit, and the times you like to visit them. The more you use Moment, the more it learns about you providing a simple and quick way to stay close to the people who matter most to you.

http://www.matthew-brigante.com/thesis/  

@matthewbrigante

Bridging the experience gap between driving and our connected world.

We are in our cars a lot, they are a part of our everyday routine. The same is true about our phones. But they both need our focused attention in order to use them. This is a problem that has led to almost half a million car accidents yearly, and in too many cases these accidents are fatal. 

Dash allows you to keep your eyes on the road, while giving you the things you need most on your phone. Drivers have immediate access to important information in a way that reduces distraction, yet still remains glance-able. Passengers are also able to contribute to the experience by sharing seamlessly from their phones. Dash can also communicate outside of the car, requesting location information from your contacts. Context is intrinsic to driving, so over time Dash will learn your patterns and routines, surfacing the right information at the right time.

thrive-goals.com 

@melodyquintana  

A tool that helps people on parole progress toward their goals, and get support from people who care along the way.

The United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world, and more than half of those who leave prison end up going back. That's because the parole experience is fraught with obstacles, anxieties, and high-risk scenarios. 

Thrive helps people set short-term, achievable goals to enhance their sense of purpose as they transition to stability. Using a mobile app or physical set of cards, parolees can follow a track of lightweight actions and take snapshots of the things they’re doing to get closer to their goals. A visual journal of small wins emerges over time, becoming a foundation for conversations with support networks of social workers, family, and friends.

michiecao-thesis.tumblr.com 

@komichiewa

A mobile app for hospital patients and families to easily manage and prepare for medical appointments.

As today’s healthcare system strives toward delivering high quality patient care while reducing spending costs, it’s becoming increasingly important for healthcare professionals to engage with patients in more meaningful ways. One way to start is to give them access to medical data that’s useful and easy to understand.

Carebook is a simple way for hospital patients to manage and prepare for medical appointments. It lets patients easily share appointment details to keep loved ones in the know. It prepares them ahead of time by offering thorough and accessible explanations about upcoming procedures and tests. It’s a place where patients can log any questions they have about an appointment and set reminders, so they never forget to ask them when the time comes. By presenting medical data in a way that feels more approachable and human, Carebook is the foundation for a growing platform that empowers people to be become advocates of their own health.

A smart safety system for bicycles that augments environmental awareness to help cyclists avoid accidents and impediments.

Every year, approximately 19,000 U.S. cyclists are killed or injured while riding. 75% of these accidents occur in urban areas. Most of these accidents occur due to lack of familiarity and awareness of the urban environment during their ride.

PHAROS is safety solution that provides security, safety and environmental awareness for cyclists during their ride. An app paired with a smart device containing a built-in lighting and sound system provides safety warning notifications en route. These elements combine to augment environmental and self-awareness to help cyclists avoid accidents in the urban environment.

www.hyphenlab.org

@minsunmini 

Connecting companies and young designers to work on solving the local environmental, social, and cultural problems using human centered design process.

How can designers play a part in creating meaningful change for people in New York City? The connection between organizations involved in social good and designers is weak at best.

Hyphen lab connects organizations not familiar with design methods with new designers who want to work with socially motivated companies. This 10-week alternative internship program in New York City has two major components: connecting and learning. Through the program, companies will get design help they need and learn to appreciate the human-centered design process. Designers will get meaningful portfolio work and learn how to lead the human-centered design process. Hyphen Lab can extend beyond New York City to help change the perception of design amongst organizations and thus empowering organizations and designers to create a greater impact together.

Inspired by ancient teachings, behavioral science and technology, Evoke seeks to bring mindfulness through micro-moments within our everyday life. 

With the constant flow of information in the digital age and the pace of modern life, our attention is constantly diffracted by the many stimuli we encounter daily. How do we find balance and respite from the daily stress without the expense of retreats or alternative holistic sessions? 

The Evoke Augmented Meditation Stone helps busy individuals recalibrate their well being via regular mindful moments during their day. 

Evoke questions the current state of human relationships and our behavior within the space between craft and technology. It provides insights found through various research studies on meditation and brain activity, physiology and human behavior to bring a more holistic approach to designing near-future technology that can shed more understanding in our well-being.

likemine.io

@sccarmichael 

Discover more of the things you like, from people like you. 

Modern recommendation engines and algorithms are effective but many people mistrust them or ignore their suggestions. Their inner workings can be complicated and obscure, and when they get it wrong, they get it really wrong.

LikeMine is a new, more personal way to get recommendations based on the things you love. Simply enter some of your favorite things and the app will pair you up with a real person with a similar list. Then, it'll show you the things they’ve listed but you haven’t. You'll discover more of the things you like, from people like you.

www.playdual.com

@samwander 

Developing computational thinking through a game of logic and strategy.

DUAL is a two player game for iPad that introduces basic programming concepts. Echoing classic board games, players battle to connect consecutive pieces on a grid. But rather than manipulate pieces directly, players must "program" them — a process requiring sequential thinking and logic akin to programming itself.

The goal for DUAL is not to teach players to code, but to initiate them in computational thinking. This empowers them to better understand, critique, and imagine new uses for technology, as well as building skills for strategizing, problem-solving, and creativity useful in everyday life.

www.civicview.org

@srhhnry 

A tool that uses human-centered design techniques to craft data from experiences of public space. 

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to walk in someone else’s shoes? Welcome to Civic View, a human-centered data collection and research tool for experiencing a community from the perspective of local residents.

Civic View makes emotional, qualitative data about public space accessible to policy makers, civic organizations, and the technology community. Its data sets include GPS, video, interview transcript, and biometric readings. These data streams are interoperable and machine-readable, while respecting the privacy of participants who volunteer to tell their stories.

@snehapie

A playful app that helps you visualize and complete your side projects without getting stuck. 

Side projects are great. They give us a chance to explore, learn, and make new things for ourselves without the pressure of deliverables and deadlines. As exciting as they are to begin, without continuous momentum they can be hard to sustain and complete.

Bit by Bit is an app that helps you envision and complete your side projects over time. Through the lens of a playful outer space adventure, Bit by Bit helps you step back to see a broader view of your project, break it down into achievable tasks, then get unstuck when you feel unsure of what to do next.

every-flora.com 

@thisunnie

An online marketplace for sending locally grown seasonal flowers to the ones you care about, supported by a sustainable and transparent ecosystem. 

Inspired by the Slow Flower movement, Every Flora is an online marketplace that sources locally grown seasonal flowers and offers a wide array of artisanal arrangements for customers to choose from. The website provides a view of each flower's journey from field to vase. It also enables deeper interaction by allowing senders to upload a video message which can be viewed by the recipient with a code found on the flower arrangement. 

The goals of Every Flora are threefold: to establish a sustainable system, to support the local flower community, and to give the users agency in the flower ordering and delivery experience. By offering an ethical and high-quality option to consumers, Every Flora will encourage more conscientious consumption of sustainable, beautiful flowers with an added dose of a more engaging experience for both givers and receivers. 

@txtype 

A digital book platform that enhances the experiences we love with books and brings them all together in one place. 

Books are the foundation of modern technology that help us easily move our ideas and stories throughout the world. Currently, digital book readers and platforms have focused on two aspects: buying books and reading books. However, books can do so much more.

PULP is a platform that embraces how we actually engage with our books and makes it incredibly simple. Within the platform, anyone can easily access a section with just a tap and share or read any type of book in the library. Creating a book is just as easy; simply import any type of content and publish. Books also enact discussion, and in PULP, conversations flow throughout. You can add comments inside a friend’s book or draft, join and chat within a book club, and message your friends.

PULP isn’t just a place to read. It is the opportunity to be inspired with others from the books we love.