innovation design day : A Recapsaturday 30th september, 2023

Hauslabs is a new internal innovation lab at Experience Haus, a natural next step in a mission to build out impactful ventures. These ventures will provide Experience Haus students with incredible learning opportunities, and the chance to lead these projects and join the world of entrepreneurship.On Saturday 30th September, 2023, over 50 current students and alumni gathered in the EH studio in Shoreditch, London. The goal of the day: to create solutions to some of London's most pressing needs.

the challenge2.5 million londoners are in poverty

According to analysis from the Social Metrics Commission (SMC), around 2.5 million Londoners are in poverty.That means they are struggling to make ends meet, secure good-quality affordable housing, or tie down the decent work they need to rise above the poverty line. And this affects people from all ages.

  • It is estimated that one in three children in London are living in poverty or around 700,000 children.

  • Poverty levels among working age Londoners have fallen to around 22 per cent but persistent poverty has increased to 15% of this age group.

  • Around one in nine pensioners in London are living in material deprivation, unable to access the necessities for today’s society.

the approach for the day

In small teams, the designers worked diligently through the design process - plenty of desk research was done, collaborative and immersive group discussions were held, and phone calls were made. Ideation sessions were run, rapid prototypes were created, and finally short team presentations were delivered.The ultimate end goal of each team: to design a product (or service) that will enable those people in unfortunate circumstances to help improve their situations.The key areas of focus:

  • Access to education and necessary skills

  • Access to healthcare

  • Financial literacy and inclusion

  • Improving individual health and wellbeing

  • Gaining employability skills and jobs

view the projects

TEAM ONE

Helpee

Chris, Iria, Amran, Shivonni & Tania

Helpee is an app that helps you connect with local people and businesses that can offer help when you need it. You can post problems and find others going through the same thing. It also allows you to find more structured support by attending events that may help you learn more about your problems.

TEAM TWO

Springboard

Yulee, Ana, Rasheeda, Djulie & Oryandlee

The Springboard platform will help single parents have access to flexible digital courses to up skill and lead to higher paid employment. How does it work? Single parents apply for a course. Employers partner with Springboard to take on graduates as employees once they finish the course

TEAM three

Balance

Isabella, Emily, Kelly, Memori & Daria

Balance is a platform for people that are verging on or have reached breaking point due to financial stress. It is a mental health app with easy to access information regarding different mental health conditions and their treatments, the different types of therapy available, and how to access support. This app will also allow users to access free therapy and courses.

TEAM four

Ladder

Amy, Irene, Mattia, Minh & Vish

People in low paid jobs struggle to increase their income. This perpetuates the cycle of poverty.So we designed an app to help people on zero hour contracts get permanent, higher-paid roles in the same company. This includes the following features: connect to a mentor, set a career goal (and view progress), get work experience in other more skilled departments, gather testimonials for use in interviews, and gain knowledge through e-learning.

TEAM five

Eat Better Certified

Jade, Reena, Mark, Simon, Khya & Andreia

Our concept involves introducing a “living wage equivalent for better eating.” By facilitating access to healthy meals in the workplace, whether through partnerships with healthy food places, supermarket vouchers, cooking facilities, employers can earn certification as “Eat Better Employers”. This badge signifies their commitment to promoting the health and wellbeing of their employees, distinguishing them as an exemplary workplace that prioritises the health of their workforce.

TEAM six

LearnCraft

Eunice, Liza, Olumide, Matthieu & Swarali

A two part solution - the first part is a programme that offers households and individuals with limited resources access to a computer, tablet or mobile. The programme reaches out to companies who replace their devices every 2 to 3 years, tech manufacturers and accept donations by individuals that no longer need their old devices. These are then assessed, cleared and prepared to deliver to a new owner who have signed up for the programme. The second part of the solution, is that if the request is for a laptop for a child aged 10-13, the laptop will then be pre-loaded with an app to help them learn soft skills as well as support them in their school work.

TEAM seven

FinTeach

Palak, Christian, Amir, Marco, Imma & Dele

FinTeach aims to improve financial literacy among 25-55 year old less privileged working professionals in London. It is an app that curates financial information from multiple sources and tailors it to specific user contexts through video, audio and text and quizzes.

TEAM EIGHT

MumEase

Lucas, Ania, Aurianne, Demi & Jenny

Supporting lone mothers in poverty. MumEase centralises resources aimed at keeping mental health issues at arms length. Using an AI chatbot, you have a digital assistant who is also your shoulder to cry on. MumEASE also has a geographical map to physical resources like sanitary products and food banks.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Making it happen.

We would love to explore taking these projects forward in the design process, and to assess the viability and feasibility of the approaches so far.If you are interested in learning more about our work, collaborating on a future design day, or helping us take any of these concepts forward, please get in touch by directly emailing Amit Patel, our Creative Director, at amit@experiencehaus.com.

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