Uber for Access-A-Ride. The short-term goal of my project has been to develop a prototype of an app that helps disabled commuters more effectively navigate Access-A-Ride, New York City’s paratransit program. The ultimate goal of my project is to encourage the city to release data about Access-A-Ride, so that citizen technologists and designers can create apps for disabled commuters – just as they have done for other forms of New York City transit. I’m currently in the process of pitching my idea to the MTA with the support of an NYC council member.

Camina Conmigo (Walk With Me) is a project that connects seniors with younger people, asking them to spend a few hours in the daily life of the other person, in order to help solve a problem that society doesn’t always perceive.

While homelessness is devastating for all youth, those who identify as transgender, gay, lesbian, bisexual or questioning are disproportionately affected by hate, violence and abuse. There is an estimate of 1.6 million homeless youth in America, of which 40% identify as LGBTQ in comparison to 4-10% of the general youth population. Caravan aims to reflect the realities of these youth living in shelters, by generating testimonials, tips, tricks, and information that encourages an easily navigable and transparent shelter system.

Clutter Capsule is a service that helps people realize they don’t need (or even want) everything they have.

Come Together Birmingham seeks to create healing and reconciliation from Birmingham’s dark history with segregation and Jim Crow. In doing so, the project strives to encourage racial inclusion and the unification of diverse community members. Two interactive community workshops were held to ignite open dialogue and to prototype co-creation between diverse stakeholders. Born out of these workshops was Red Mountain Collective, a social justice art and design residency. The residency’s vision is to establish the city as a hub for diversity and creativity in the South. Red Mountain Collective will support diverse artists and designers in creating community projects engaging the public in discussions of race relations, as well as participation in creative community organizing events. A full proposal for the residency has been developed and submitted for funding with the goal of launching a pilot session in the fall of 2016.

Comedere is a consumer product for low-income working Mexicans to acquire healthier and better eating habits through 5 minute breakfasts.

Diffuse has the potential to change the way we see bike theft by turning a personal and private problem (being a victim of bike theft) into a shared public one. The goal is to create change and cause proactive actions against bike theft, which would otherwise not happen. By exerting paint, this device creates evidence that an act of theft has occurred and helps establish a sense of accountability between the thief and the community. The paint markings can be useful in helping a potential buyer of second-hand bikes or parts to avoid buying stolen parts, and by marking parking spots where bike thefts have occurred, and ultimately raising awareness of the growing rate of bike thefts in NYC.

Get Good Done gamifies the doing of social good. By providing users with one good deed to complete each day, Get Good Done helps users make a habit out of doing good. By completing deeds, users earn points and can ultimately win prizes.

What if you could scan objects in your kitchen and hear the voices of people you’ve never known? What if you could share something intimate with someone who is supposed to be your enemy, without even meeting? Hummbowls are storytelling tableware, co-designed and exchanged between people from the Middle East and inspired by common hummus rituals. In each bowl, someone’s dipping style and narrative is preserved and shared. You can use the bowl for whatever purpose – although really, the best use for it would be eating hummus.

Out Loan is a web app that simplifies repayment strategies for borrowers saddled with federal student loans.

Tweens with autism have a hard time socializing with others and parents are afraid that immersing with digital games will exacerbate isolation. Playcraft is an analog facilitation tool that is used hand-in-hand with Minecraft, a common affinity amongst tweens of all abilities, in order to create dialogue around social topics and encourage collaborative decision making. It’s vision is to unveil social barriers for tweens with autism and to advocate more in-person interaction with peers outside of school.

Seekit is a toolkit that helps college students navigate through the untested waters of their depression and begin to take more control of the path they chart.

The Good Guides is a a volunteer-based program to reduce the waiting time for patients in government hospitals in India over an year long project. This program is unique because it is an organized mobilization of young, motivated volunteers to improve the healthcare experience for an underserved population in India. The volunteers are trained to be mediators between the staff and the patients to communicate the right information and provide support to ensure smoother patient flow. They have launched an organized yet customizable platform of information and resources for hospital management, healthcare consultants or NGOs to be able to adopt this model for their own hospitals. From their learnings during the process of working on thesis, they have also designed a toolkit for change-makers across the world which has a library of all resources that they used in their work and a step-by-step methodology that can be followed to create positive change.

The Halal Girls is a support network to ease the transition for Saudi women returning home after studying abroad.

The Southside Project empowers Latino small businesses in South Williamsburg by guiding them to address their main challenges. Under the platform: Merchants Association, they are increasing their entrepreneurial capabilities and connecting with local partners.

What’s Not To Love is an online platform in which young people visit and share their concerns about appearance, expose themselves to new and diverse perspectives of beauty, and connect with people from all around the world.

Wise MD is a fitbit like app to help physicians with real time, automatic and physician specific data, aiming to enable cost conscious, quality care decisions.

Wombologue is an online achievement platform using illustrations to document forced abortion stories in China.

Japan had a devastating nuclear accident. Just four years later, no one seems to care or discuss it. How can we begin to talk about it again? The design solution is YUBIKIRI. YUBIKIRI, which means pinky promise in Japanese, presents information about seventeen simple actions including exchanging an incandescent bulb with a LED one to contribute to shifting toward sustainable energy.