Design Sprint Case Studies
Develop and adapt products or experiences that users will love

Design the On-demand Personal Security API
Industry Partner: Neeraj Agarwal, MD at Bluesource
Story by Alecia: The team wanted to work on this problem (on-demand security) because personal security is very crucial and every backstory behind the APP was very intense. Security@Go was developed to meet imminent dangerous situation faced by any individuals (without having him or her to rely solely on the police). We used Balsamiq as a wireframing tool. Additionally, the team used Coogle to visualize the business flow. The most challenging aspect of the project was continuously finding ways to capture and express how the application would work while making it distinctive from competitive APIs that are currently on the market.
The team developed their idea over several meeting. These different sessions continuously gave them insights as to what the needs of the APP if it were to be launched immediately.
Members: Alecia, Nicole, and Amrit
Story by Alecia: The team wanted to work on this problem (on-demand security) because personal security is very crucial and every backstory behind the APP was very intense. Security@Go was developed to meet imminent dangerous situation faced by any individuals (without having him or her to rely solely on the police). We used Balsamiq as a wireframing tool. Additionally, the team used Coogle to visualize the business flow. The most challenging aspect of the project was continuously finding ways to capture and express how the application would work while making it distinctive from competitive APIs that are currently on the market.
The team developed their idea over several meeting. These different sessions continuously gave them insights as to what the needs of the APP if it were to be launched immediately.
Members: Alecia, Nicole, and Amrit

Reducing Food Waste to Optimize Grocery & Meal Planning
Industry Partner: Brian Paden, Ex Samsung, Entrepreneur
Story by Zixuan:
Optimizing grocery meal planning and reducing food waste, we used the AI Image Recognition accomplished by YOLO and also finished the basic UX/UI design of the APP.
The most challenging aspect was to identify the target market, for which we can distribute the customer questionnaires to, and we finally resorted to crowdsource responses on LinkedIn. As a team, we also focused on an interactive and compelling presentation style, which paid off by winning as the Audience’s Favorite Presentation!
Members: Sean, Zixuan, Junyi, Jessica, and Divyanshee
Quote from GVC Participant: “This adventure closely aligns with my career objective - Applying technology into the business field and make everyone thriving. I am looking forward to future opportunities that could lead me to be a profession in engineering consulting field.” --Junyi
Story by Zixuan:
Optimizing grocery meal planning and reducing food waste, we used the AI Image Recognition accomplished by YOLO and also finished the basic UX/UI design of the APP.
The most challenging aspect was to identify the target market, for which we can distribute the customer questionnaires to, and we finally resorted to crowdsource responses on LinkedIn. As a team, we also focused on an interactive and compelling presentation style, which paid off by winning as the Audience’s Favorite Presentation!
Members: Sean, Zixuan, Junyi, Jessica, and Divyanshee
Quote from GVC Participant: “This adventure closely aligns with my career objective - Applying technology into the business field and make everyone thriving. I am looking forward to future opportunities that could lead me to be a profession in engineering consulting field.” --Junyi


Devloping the MVP for Unbiased
Industry Partner: Alison Bellach, Director of Engineering at Verizon Media
Story: Hiring managers struggle with unconscious bias in creating job postings and reviewing candidates, which leads to missed opportunities between the right talents and the company . Unbiased proposed a new vision that removes potential biases in the hiring process performed by the traditional HR professionals.
The team starts with a critique of the language used for job description and then identified characteristics of candidates that are subject to biases. Then, they created a brand-new interface that automates bias detection and equalizes candidates’ opportunities, ultimately driving higher performance, diversity and economic growth in the company.
Team members: Anastasiia, Misha, Bryan and Bartosz
Story: Hiring managers struggle with unconscious bias in creating job postings and reviewing candidates, which leads to missed opportunities between the right talents and the company . Unbiased proposed a new vision that removes potential biases in the hiring process performed by the traditional HR professionals.
The team starts with a critique of the language used for job description and then identified characteristics of candidates that are subject to biases. Then, they created a brand-new interface that automates bias detection and equalizes candidates’ opportunities, ultimately driving higher performance, diversity and economic growth in the company.
Team members: Anastasiia, Misha, Bryan and Bartosz


Personal Carbon Tracker, a CleanTech Project
Industry Partner: Vanessa Wu, BCG consultant and an extern at NextEra Energy
Story by Miguel: Over the past few months, we have seen companies like MSFT, AMZN, and Ikea commit to reducing their carbon footprint. Motivated by the success of FitBit, this project proposes to create a carbon footprint tracker for individuals and incorporate the concept of gamification to increase visibility and individual accountability, with the ultimate goal of reducing carbon footprint in daily activities.
The team analyzed the data that they collected after the 1st weekend to understand the feasible first step. The team focused on adapting a user-friendly interface to achieve educational purpose in order to cultivate environmental-friendly habits for their users. Their business challenges lied in being first to market and a disruptor in the clean tech space, and time is only enough the get the idea started. The opportunity was once in a lifetime and we look forward to the next cohort.
Members: Lisa, Claire, Ian, Matt, Miguel
Story by Miguel: Over the past few months, we have seen companies like MSFT, AMZN, and Ikea commit to reducing their carbon footprint. Motivated by the success of FitBit, this project proposes to create a carbon footprint tracker for individuals and incorporate the concept of gamification to increase visibility and individual accountability, with the ultimate goal of reducing carbon footprint in daily activities.
The team analyzed the data that they collected after the 1st weekend to understand the feasible first step. The team focused on adapting a user-friendly interface to achieve educational purpose in order to cultivate environmental-friendly habits for their users. Their business challenges lied in being first to market and a disruptor in the clean tech space, and time is only enough the get the idea started. The opportunity was once in a lifetime and we look forward to the next cohort.
Members: Lisa, Claire, Ian, Matt, Miguel