The Turning Point...

During the last week, our team came to the realization that we were approaching the Smart City brief incorrectly, and as a result, were not making the progress we had anticipated.

During the first team meeting in late September, we discussed specific aspects of a city that we noticed were troublesome to its citizens. One topic that was brought up was the transport of luggage. In other words, the hassle of moving belongings around the city, whether it be travel bags for tourist, frequent business travelers, or people simply needing to get luggage from point A to point B.

We researched this topic throughout the following weeks, and discussed it further during our team meetings. However, we began to notice that despite our exploration of transporting items in cities, we failed to make significant progress in the development of our project.

During meetings we had long discussions regarding inconveniences we had noticed in the city, articles we had read or videos we had seen regarding a problem we prematurely identified. This led us to focus too narrowly on solutions without fully exploring the big picture regarding a Smart City and the large potential for change. Additionally, we realized we were solving for individual gain rather than community gain. Something needed to change.

The turning point for our team was after our class on October 19, when we participated in the IoT activity with Futurice. This led us to conclude that it was essential for us to implement different brainstorming and creative sessions during group meetings in order to make meaningful progress in our thought processes and overall project development.

After class, we decided that our original approach was not working and we needed to try something different. We asked each member of our team to take the weekend to explore topics of their interest and present them at the following meeting.

Topics that were discussed included: Housing/Infrastructure, Healthcare Sustainability, Transportation, Mental Health and Waste Management.

Mental Health was the topic chosen by most members of our team. We officially switched gears and began to explore the WHYs of Mental Health.

We did not re-create the design activity that we completed with Futurice, but we now have a better understanding of tactics that could expand our ability to think creatively and not focus solely on solutions. For example, Mina has the book "Design. Think. Make. Break. Repeat" that highlights various exercise to help spark creative thinking. We will be using this book, as well as other tools to help us progress through this project and thoroughly explore our chosen topic.

Our team is happy to have finally discovered a path that is already leading us to fruitful progress.