Impact Studio

What makes a great project partner?

• Mission and work align with at least one of our  domain spheres: Planet, Health, Social Impact, Biofutures (Biotech/BioE)
• Motivated by mutual learning (appreciating students as collaborators, not consultants)
• Appropriate and meaningful challenge(s) for 20-week timeframe, and ones that would benefit from human-centered design methods
• Potential and desire for longer term commitment
• Support for visiting students for immersion and/or testing

What does ideal commitment look like?

• One or two dedicated point people representing the partner:
• For whom this project advances their goals within their org
• Ideally an internal design hero who has some familiarity with our human-centered design approach and methods 
• Attend milestone meetings:
• Scoping set of conversations in Fall (pre-class)
• Kickoff (January)
• Final presentations (mid-March + late May)
• Available to students
• Office hours / email Q’s for ongoing learning
• Support and facilitate access to users (internal, external)
• Support navigating relevant regulatory layers where needed (ie, with health privacy, or vulnerable populations)
• Support access to spaces and environments; potentially materials as relevant

How is the challenge defined

We will collaborate with you on identifying a need area you would like our students to explore and on framing the challenge so that it is right-sized for a diverse solution space. Ideally this is a real, important and interesting challenge or project you are facing but is perhaps on a backburner due to lack of resources, low urgency, or blue-sky scope. 


What are some “wish list” types of projects that you’ve been wanting to do, and maybe haven’t had time for? Your “side bet” ideas? If you had four bright Stanford students for 5 months what would you have them work on?

Partnership Timetable

Additional Opportunity Areas

• Deepening your relationship with the d.school and your own familiarity with design and design thinking methods
• Getting to work with young, bright minds (and maybe a demographic not represented in your org)
• Exposure to talent 
• Opportunity to offer follow-on project work or internships to students as desired
• Potential to support select teams in carrying work forward in an incubator/accelerator in the summer
• Connect with other forward thinkers / orgs in other verticals 

Get Started