Fishes go around

IdeaSquare to me, felt like a builders paradise. The place as Lauren helped me describe, felt “Lived in”. With every inch of the place meticulously crafted to perfection, every wall, every bunker, and every thing asking to be ripped apart and rebuilt, and that’s a feeling I seldom feel. The people, the environment, the history, everything made me passionate, passionate about my craft and everything I do.  As someone relatively new to the formal discipline of design thinking, IdeaSquare was both exhilarating and daunting. It wasn't just about brainstorming; it was about deconstructing assumptions, my own included There were no dumb ideas! There was even a time when a team I was working alongside came up with ways to increase global warming to stop water salination. I’m so glad we didn’t pursue that, but that was us, a bunch of engineers, designers, and architects nerding out on the smallest details, designing, and calculating every interaction and I hadn’t felt that in a long time. By the end of the super intensive “Two week intensive,” I presented alongside the rest of Team Nexus, four ideas that we thought we might work on. More details can be found on the team's running blog, at CBI’s website. One of the ideas we presented during this intensive was that of “Fishy go around,” which eventually grew to be LIFE. The Idea started from one of Claudia’s opportunity cards about Harmful Algal Blooms. The problem was about how HABs have been around for centuries with no solutions in sight. Although we knew of an existing system by NASA, the system would only give an overview of the situation, with not enough information about the causes of those blooms. Another problem was that the Algal blooms would remain invisible until they reached a certain intensity. 

Immigrants often face challenges managing and investing the money they have access to. The situation becomes especially challenging when they need money but lack a Social Security Number. Banks, the system does not bridge them to successful onboarding. The system also fosters a sense of community to support internal lending practices, offering an alternative to traditional credit checks based on Social Security Numbers.