How to Win the MIT Grand Hack: Advocate for the User

When Industrial Designer Ayan Bhandari set out to compete in the Global Health Track at MIT’s Grand Hack 2015: Hacking Medicine event, he had no idea how much the industrial design experience and user advocacy that he employs daily at Ximedica would assist his efforts.

Ayan joined a small diverse team of health care professionals and engineers, and the team was tasked with generating product concepts targeted at pedestrian safety – a topic of particular interest for the event.

Each teammate shared relevant experiences and narratives during the initial brainstorming activity. One teammate, a native Ugandan, told of how motorbike accidents outnumber and cause more injuries than automobiles in her home country. This is especially true for women, because they are expected to sit sideways holding onto their belongings as the bike weaves through traffic.

Typical motorbike positions for men & women in Uganda.

The team then set to work on redesigning a motorbike seat that would allow women to store their belongings and reduce the incidence of accidents.

As the team’s resident Industrial Designer, Ayan started querying:
After two days of sketching, iterating, fashioning prototypes, and leveraging each other’s respective talents, the team presented the final concept and were given First Prize in the Global Health Track for their invention with a unanimous vote.

• What size device would best-fit a Ugandan woman with things to carry and places to go?
• Should it be plastic for the sake of cost, or heavier for added rigidity?
• How much storage space will the device need to provide, without sacrificing compact size?

After two days of sketching, iterating, fashioning prototypes, and leveraging each other’s respective talents, the team presented the final concept and were given First Prize in the Global Health Track for their invention with a unanimous vote.

Ayan (far right) and his team with their 1st Place trophy.

“Between the two of us, we can count the number of Industrial Designers we met there on one hand,” reflects Tom Lutzow, a Ximedica-based Industrial Designer who also attended the Grand Hack. “Many teams presented genius-level ideas, but didn’t understand their users, or how their technologies might be used on an everyday basis. The lack of Industrial Design input prevented many groups from being able to seamlessly arbitrate between products’ expected human use and the enabling technologies.”

Ayan is looking forward to attending the Grand Hack again next year, but will encourage more designers (both professional and at the university level) to get involved, because after all, “this is user-centered innovation 101, plus it’s fun!”

About the Grand Hack:

The event brings together 400+ clinicians, engineers, designers, developers, and business owners from around the globe to tackle real health challenges in the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. Ximedica’s Senior Human Factors Industrial Designer Tom Lutzow judged the Primary Care track, while Human Factors Industrial Designer Ayan Bhandari chose to participate in the Global Health track.