Introduction
Innovation isn’t something that just happens overnight, or is it? Well, anyone who has ever been part of a hackathon could debate that assumption. A hackathon is an event where groups of people meet to intensively work towards creating an impactful solution for any problem. These groups must develop an idea, create a prototype, and pitch their proposal in just days or hours.
Several strategies can be followed to meet this goal, but one is perfectly designed for this: design thinking.
Design Thinking is a methodology for solving complex problems with a user-centered approach. Through a deep understanding of people’s needs, the teams using this methodology can identify problems and create effective solutions.
In the second phase of the FutureFounder’s StartupReadiness Simulation, the other fellows and I were divided into groups to create and develop solutions for problems that are close to all of us: Sustainable housing, social inequality, and gender violence.
I was part of one of the two teams focused on the latter.
The Product
One of the first things that my teammate and I realized is that gender violence is something that affects everyone, with no distinction of gender or age, but it does it in different ways. It’s not the same for a 50-year-old woman, a 10-year-old girl, or a 25-year-old man. Especially in Latin America, where we are both from.
The second thing that we agreed on was that we can link a lot of gender-related problems towards one thing: women can’t be empowered if they don’t complete their education. A lot of times, women are vulnerable in our societies due to a financial and/or emotional dependency on someone else and this doesn’t allow them to escape dangerous situations or have the tools to grow in their careers or achieve their goals.
In Latin America, one of the main reasons why a girl must drop out of school should keep everyone awake at night. teenage pregnancies. In this region of the world, you could ask almost anyone about this, and you could hear the saddest and most horrifying stories. Of course, there are cases where women have been able to overcome such an unjust challenge, but they are the exception to the rule. And the rule is that if a woman younger than 20 years old gets pregnant, their future is broken to pieces. Having thought about all this, our problem statement became clear:
Young Latin-American girls need access to sexual education, contraceptive methods, and knowledge about the options available to them.
The next step was getting real information and data about our assumptions so we could make the necessary adjustments. We found several pieces of research from the UN, OCDE, UNICEF, and other organizations that were highlighting the problem we were targeting. After this investigation, we decided to focus first on Mexico, due to the urgency that this situation represents in the country, where almost 1 in every 5 pregnancies is from a teenager.
Following the Design Thinking steps, the next one was coming up with five radical ideas that could be a solution to the problem. After a very interesting brainstorming session involving very bad drawings and proposing solutions that would scare our grandmothers, my teammate came up with the idea of a Contraceptive Vending Machine that could be installed in the school’s bathrooms. The idea behind this was that, after interviewing some teenage girls, contraceptive availability was a key necessity for them.
But if we were to offer innovative solutions, we would also need to educate teenagers on how to use them and other sexual health topics. So, after some fellow feedback, we also developed the idea for an app that would serve as a secondary product to attract new customers, educate them, and provide solutions for other problems like lack of access to professional advice and medical appointments.
Future Founder Demo Day
The last part of the Hackathon was a Demo Day, which involved pitching to a table of judges, who were experienced founders and CEOs of their own companies like Vadim Polikov (Legends of Learning), Ernesto Graxha (SplitSpot), Christopher Tinsley (Shop My Shelf), and Catarina Nunes (3D Ventures).
So we had to work for several weeks to create a pitch and slide deck that would impress them. This part is where my teammate took the lead, as she’s a master of Canva and started designing a great pitch deck.
On Demo Day, our team was the first to pitch, we were nervous but excited to showcase our efforts and practice. After a couple of Zoom-related technical difficulties, we pitched our way through. We got to the Q&A, where Ernesto and Catarina asked us fascinating questions and gave us valuable feedback.
Pitching to this audience was something incredible. Right after finishing, we had a feeling of accomplishment, and we were proud of each other.
Key Takeaways
Hackathons can be exhausting, mentally and physically in some cases, but it’s an experience worth living at least once. An event where brilliant people come together and try to find solutions to problems only having their minds and skills.
My advice for anyone who wants to start team projects based on design thinking is to take your time to meet your team. Understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses so you can figure out how to work together. Building chemistry with your teammates makes everything easier and smoother.
Even if the problem at hand may seem too big, find a way to break it down into small pieces so you can start one step at a time.
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