L3 Innovation Challenge Demo Day – by Andrew Holmes

L3 Innovation Challenge Demo Day – by Andrew Holmes

General
When I was in high school going through Youth CITIES March to May Bootcamp myself, I was exposed to an entirely new world of innovative leaders and a new way of thinking, and pushed myself to present my work in front of a crowd of people far larger than I’d ever presented to in a classroom setting. It was a whole new way of thinking, and gave me the confidence I needed to make the transition to an independent college student. Now that I’ve graduated from college and returned to Youth CITIES to mentor the L3 Innovation Challenge, seeing these students grow over just 7 short weeks has made me realize all over again how impactful this program is and its ability to introduce students to a whole new way…
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Low-fidelity Prototypes to Learn & Test – by Vicky Wu Davis

General
Every Wednesday night, Sanibel knows that I can’t pick her up from school at 6pm because I’ll be teaching.  She’s bummed, but understands that I’ll be home to tuck her in (our kids don’t go to bed very early).  Last week, however, she was excited because I was bringing her with me to class.  She told all her teachers in school that day that I’d be picking her up early so she could go to “Mama’s work”. Dean, my 8 year old, didn’t want to be left out, so he came too.  So Aidan (oldest brother, who's also participating in the L3 Innovation Challenge), Dean, Sophia (a student I give a ride to/from class each week), and I went to Sanibel’s school to pick her up, and bring her to…
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L3 Class 5 – Testing with the 4 year old user – by Andrew Holmes

L3 Class 5 – Testing with the 4 year old user – by Andrew Holmes

General
Waiting with a number of students in the lobby of Lab Central for Class 5 to get started, we turned toward the entrance, hearing a loud, high pitch voice of someone singing and cheering through the entrance of the building. Accompanied by Youth CITIES founder Vicky Wu Davis, aka her mother, as well as her eight and eleven year old brothers, it was none other than Sanibel, the famous four year old students have been learning about and beginning to design for! She entered the building dragging a rolling suitcase that was bigger than her, and when it got stuck on the doorframe and her brothers jumped to help out, she screamed back “My do it!” in the most adorable voice I’ve ever heard. Once we all entered the classroom…
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Purposeful Prototypes – Reflections of week 4 – by Andrew Holmes

Purposeful Prototypes – Reflections of week 4 – by Andrew Holmes

General
At the end of last week’s blog I mentioned a conversation we had as a class about playing basketball with a visual impairment. This discussion came up again in Class Four, and Vicky Wu Davis, Sanibel’s mother, went into more detail on the conversation in the latest blog post. I’d like to use this example again to illustrate some of the main points of this week’s class.  As a class we discussed potential problem areas and entered a high level discussion about ways that technology could solve particular problems that a blind individual might encounter. One student, Vicky’s eleven year old son, brought up a great point that implementing this technology in a basketball game could lead to unfairness on the court or even cheating, giving a player with a…
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Unintended Consequences of Innovation – by Vicky Wu Davis

General
In Class 3, we talked about how technological innovation cannot be a suitable, long-term, workable solution, if the only thing we make sure of is that a narrow piece of technology is working.  In class, exoskeletons really fascinated a particular student (ok, many people, including me); however we all soon realized that even if the exoskeleton itself worked, there were other technological hurdles to overcome…and that’s just the technological piece of the conversation.  This is where the invention piece is just one piece of the puzzle.  If the Tesla only innovated on the car itself, but not on the infrastructure of charging stations…or if the PS4 came out but no games were created for it, or if you have an amazing e-commerce site, but there’s no wi-fi around at all…well,…
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Reflections of Class 3 – L3 Innovation Challenge – by Andrew Holmes

General
A few weeks ago I sat down with Youth CITIES founder Vicky Wu Davis, had coffee, and agreed not only to mentoring this year’s L3 Challenge, but also to the momentous task of writing a blog following the events of the challenge. Vicky had asked me to do so, given my unique lens of having been a Youth CITIES student, and now a mentor as a working professional.  And after kicking it off with my first (ever) blog post, I proceeded to get sick and miss the second week of class and all the rich details shared about Vicky’s daughter, her vision condition, and the kinds of daily activities she enjoys that students will help to improve upon with the use of Bose tech. It also means I missed the…
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Class 2 of L3 Innovation Challenge – by Kyle Langley

General
The  L3 Innovation Challenge entered its second leg this Wednesday as we continued to promote entrepreneurial problem-solving and thinking in a technology-centric world. We were once again hosted by Lab Central, a biotech lab facility and coworking space near Kendall Square and the high tech atmosphere was contagious as the various students gathered together for part 2 of our 7 week hackathon. As a recent resident in cambridge from my native South Africa it was truly amazing to get a chance to be a part of such an exciting and dynamic program.  As an entrepreneur myself, the quality of mentorship and open style 'learn by doing' style was very true to the lessons you learn in thereal world. After initial introductions we took the time to get to know the mentors assisting…
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Class 2 – The Biggest Challenge of the Challenge – Vicky Wu Davis

Class 2 – The Biggest Challenge of the Challenge – Vicky Wu Davis

General
One of the many things going through my mind during a night of insomnia, are the reflections of Class 2 for this year’s L3 Innovation Challenge.  What an exciting night last night!  Class 2 included a deeper dive on the Challenge we issued, developing empathy, realizing the power of observation, and doing a crash course on vision science.  While science and engineering are often lumped together as STEM, traditionally scientists and engineers didn’t work together.  However, convergence has these two disciplines often needing to work together to solve some complex problems, and I wanted both types of students to understand/respect the value of each other in partnership. Last week, a CITIES Scholar – turned student mentor – turned mentor/guest instructor wrote in his blog writeup  “Technology exists in a context defined…
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L3 Innovation Challenge – Week 1 – by Andrew Holmes

General
This past Wednesday kicked off the beginning of the L3 Innovation Challenge, a weekly program by Youth CITIES designed to promote entrepreneurial problem-solving and thinking in a technology-centric world. Not far from Kendall Square, one of the most high-density technology centers in the world, I entered Lab Central, a biotech lab facility and coworking space. Lost at first, surrounded by pristine-white laboratories with fancy equipment, I headed down an equally pristine corridor until I found the meeting room our program had taken over with thirty five middle and high school students and a buffet of pizza, fries, and chicken fingers. L3 promotes a kind of thinking and approach to engineering that I really appreciate, and although I’ve been involved with Youth CITIES for over six years, I’ve never been able…
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Figuring Out the Right Type of Prototype – by Andrew Holmes

General
We will begin posting tidbits and insights from our Skunkworks prototyping lab.  Often times budding entrepreneurs think they can jump from idea to business launch.  The truth is the entrepreneurial process is exactly that - a process.  Everyone's journey is different because of the pain point and who they are serving.  Vicky's Note:  "I think one of the most challenging aspects that I’ve observed with students (and many adults too), is trying to figure out what is the right prototype to build.  Understanding the purpose of the intended prototype is key.  This then leads to the decisions around what medium to use for the prototype, and what that prototype might look like.  I think the reason it’s so hard to grasp is because many people want to create something as close…
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