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AC4D: One year later, Innovating solutions to address Homelessness, by Jon Kolko

By Jon Kolko - April 28, 2011

in design.edu | Case Study

Austin Center for Design has just completed its first year of classes, and student teams have created progressive entrepreneurial models for affecting positive change in the world around them. After spending 24 weeks immersed in the problem of homelessness, the following businesses have emerged:

Patient Nudge

After observing the limited time and resources case workers have to manage an increasingly large at-risk population, Ryan Hubbard and Christina Tran developed an online compliance and persistence tool. This tool—Patient Nudge—allows a care provider to automatically check in with a large population via SMS, aggregate results into compelling visualizations, and identify outliers in the data.

Hour School

Through participatory design research, Ruby Ku and Alex Pappas observed a dramatic change in self-esteem when the chronically homeless were empowered to teach something to their peers. The homeless have skills—often robust technical skills, such as information technology or medical abilities—yet are rarely provided an opportunity to utilize these skills in support of one another. Ruby and Alex developed Hour School, an online service that identifies people in your social network who can teach specific skills, and helps support the creation of impromptu classes.

Pocket Hotline

While conducting ethnographic research at a local shelter, Chap Ambrose and Scott Magee observed an overwhelmed and poorly trained desk attendant try to answer a variety of questions about services and operations. Through a process of prototyping and testing, they've developed Pocket Hotline, a distributed call center application that routes customer support calls to volunteers' personal cellphones.

All of these groups immersed themselves in the culture of homelessness for ten weeks, in order to gain empathy with their target audience. They managed to then quickly synthesize data into key insights, and through an iterative and user-centered process of design and prototyping, each project emerged. They continued to build business models around the prototypes, in order to create double-bottom-line businesses. They are now in the processes of conducting preliminary pilot studies in order to to prove the efficacy of their ideas.

Austin Center for Design strives to formalize the process by which design is connected with the public sector. The long-term goal of The Center is to investigate and drive a positive relationship between design thinking and the large "wicked" problems facing the public sector. These problems broadly include issues of poverty, hunger, education, health and wellness, sustainability, and equality; while these issues are typically explored and addressed through policy and politics, little has been done to understand how creativity and less linear thinking can provide assistance.

AC4D is looking for their next round of entrepreneurs to join the second year of classes. Applications are due on June 1st. Visit the Austin Center for Design site for more information.

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Michael Cousins Jr

13 years ago

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Amazing to see design being used in ways to help the community, I have been trying to (I am working) to develop a project to foster change and community in Detroit.
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Lauren Serota

13 years ago

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Sami,

This may seem surprising, however the AC4D students found that no matter how dire the experience of homelessness, those experiencing it (in Austin) have constant accessibility to technology via shelter computer labs and libraries. One interesting fact is that there was an overwhelming number of research participants with active facebook accounts, who log in daily. Interactive tools are giving folks experiencing homelessness a flexible, and most importantly, free and location-agnostic way to connect with their friends and loved ones.

Additionally, you'll notice that more than half of the projects are service solutions focused on systems that will engage this population, but may not be directly used by them. For example Pocket Hotline is primary a system that facilitates appropriate call routing for those in need of information - regardless of if they're calling from a pay phone, a mobile phone, or a friend's phone.

I hope this helped!
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Sami Nerenberg

13 years ago

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These are great. Thanks for sharing. I'll be sure to share with our team that will be looking at similar issues this summer!

In regards to the tech question. I understand from the rollout and production side, tech is fast and cheap- all good things; in your guys' research- how accessible were computers and internet for your users? I appreciate the sms version- do your users have cell-phones? Are they given cell-phones as part of the program? I ask because we'll be facing similar questions and would be useful to build on your insights.

Thanks and congrats to the Austin Center for completing its first year!!
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Chap Ambrose

13 years ago

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Hi Steve!

Tech wasn't a requirement, but I can tell you why I'm drawn to using software and the web to change behavior.

*Speed. I can spend a day experimenting with an idea and immediately start using it without waiting for tooling or committee approval.

*Scale. One of us can code something and then push it out to be used by thousands of people.

*Cost. Software is effectively free. The commoditization of web infrastructure means I don't have to risk the farm to try a new idea, just my time.

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Steve Portigal

13 years ago

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Seems like technology plays a prominent role in all of these businesses. Is that a constraint for the design exercise?
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