During the month of May, my talented all-female team and I had the chance to work with the Delhi and District Chamber of Commerce to complete the first of three Ivey Digital Innovation Studio (IDIS) sprints.
What is the Ivey Digital Innovation Studio?
The Ivey Master of Science in Digital Management provides students with the chance to employ the knowledge, skills, and abilities that they acquired during the first two semesters of the program. This summer practicum encourages students to act as consultants for a range of industry clients. This summer’s clients included not-for-profits, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and larger world-renowned corporations.
Each IDIS sprint provides students the chance to evaluate the current technological capacity of the partner and their ability to adopt new digital technologies in the short, mid, and long term. Each team made recommendations and identified emerging technologies that could be leveraged in unique ways.
My IDIS Experience
My team was tasked with applying One Planet Living principles as well as new and novel technologies to Delhi with the goal of reinvigorating a once flourishing agricultural community.
We utilized design and systems thinking theories to fully understand the opportunities present with Delhi and the surrounding district. We empathised and defined the situation at hand, mapped the many stakeholders, and causal loops present currently as well as how certain solutions might affect the current ecosystem.
Our team participated in numerous ideating and prototyping workshops to forge our way forward. We finally settled on utilizing computer visioning to increase access to locally sourced, sustainable food.
On May 26, we participated in the first day of a two-day design fair. We presented our solution to our client, our professor, and our colleagues. We were also able to sit in on the presentations of the two other teams presenting their interpretation and ideas of the opportunities surrounding Delhi.
Getting Personal
I am very happy to have started my IDIS journey working with the Delhi and District Chamber of Commerce. As someone who grew up in a small town and has worked in rural tourism this was really a full circle moment for me. I found it easy to empathize with our client’s pain points because I had experienced many of them myself. I understood the challenge of enticing people to visit and live in a small town, because I had done that too.
Having reflected on my experience with this past sprint, I’ll leave you with my final thoughts. I feel confident in my team’s ability to deliver a sound and actionable solution. I feel grateful to have been a part of such a strong all female team. I feel thankful to have had supportive network of support including our professors and clients. Last but not least, I feel energized to start the next sprint.