Denison Edge Program Highlights the Promise of our Next-Gen Problem Solvers
By Lori Fry, Senior Manager, Deloitte
This past summer, I was fortunate to have a front-row seat to watch college students and recent grads tackle the complex housing issues impacting Columbus residents. What I saw in my time with them was not only impressive, but gave me great hope for the impact that technology –– and these students –– will have.
It came about after I was introduced to Eric Lloyd and Michael Compton who, with their team at Denison Edge in Columbus, were planning the latest iteration of Denison CX-Edge, a business foundations program for recent non-STEM college grads and current students. I signed on to do a presentation on Digital Transformation in Government, and after the kickoff session and meeting the students, I was hooked and they couldn’t get rid of me!
CX-Edge is a six week, five days per week immersive summer educational program where students learn core concepts and methodologies for designing today’s customer experiences and interactions supported by design, technology and data strategies. CX-Edge teaches a build/measure/learn/iterate approach to problem-solving, and each summer, a new “problem” is chosen. This year’s challenge was to design products or tools to more efficiently release Emergency Rental Assistance funds to those in need ¾ and design them in such a way that they could be repurposed for future use.
“It’s designed so these kids are developing a solution for a problem that exists here locally,” Compton told me. “And a solution that a partner can then take forward.”
Working with government leaders, renters, landlords and nonprofit agencies, the students first dove in-depth into the housing issues faced by multiple stakeholders in central Ohio, including attending eviction court and facilitating end-user focus groups. Passionate mentors and industry experts made themselves available to riff on students’ ideas, offer suggestions and provide encouragement along the way.
In addition to sharing my experiences in delivering digital transformation in government, as well as governance and organizational change management, I volunteered to consult with the students throughout this iterative journey to create new ideas and solutions that combined digital and user experience design improvements. My time with the student teams flew - they were energizing and the environment was energizing.
Ultimately, the teams produced seven investigations or solutions for helping address the Columbus housing crisis ¾ going well beyond the original request, they included:
A personalized housing assistance program for “supporting our tenants where they are and empowering them to get to where they want to be.”
A housing provider program that helps landlords more quickly improve their properties and how they receive monthly rent.
An app that gamifies paying rent.
And a web-based solution to connect housing nonprofits, renters, landlords and the City of Columbus through a streamlined, easy-to-navigate site for all stakeholders.
After watching them so closely all summer, I wasn’t surprised with the depth and impressiveness of the students’ final solutions. And I was truly taken by the students’ capacity to quickly absorb, assimilate, and apply massive amounts of information from a range of sources about this very far-reaching and complex problem.
The speed at which they processed information was truly astounding, and the maturity of thinking they put into creating new solutions took incredible time, dedication and resilience to see them to fruition. They constantly expanded their thinking, understanding the interrelatedness and importance of financial education, food security and workforce development to addressing this complex problem. They also had an innate understanding of how to integrate human-centered design principles and smart technologies as a way to facilitate progress, not complicate the process.
I was really heartened by this effort, and it gave me a ton of energy as I watched it come together! I’m truly excited to see what our next generation of technology leaders in Ohio will bring to our industry, and I think you should be too.