FoldWorld

One of the greatest shortcomings of human-centered design is its lack of guidance on how to include diversity as part of the design process. Which human, exactly, belongs in the center? Most designers end up using their own abilities and experience as a baseline for their designs. This problem is even more pronounced for the predominantly young and able-bodied designers that work in technology. The result is products that work well for people with similar abilities and resources, but end up largely excluding everyone else. This is especially true for roughly 1 billion people on the planet with disabilities.

Filling out a form is one of life’s little hassles. Whether it’s a paper permission slip or a health questionnaire found online, the task of filling in the same fields over and over is time-consuming and error-prone.

Pigzbe is a (very) smart device that teaches kids 6+ the value of money in a digital world. It's one of the first-ever family products built using the blockchain.

Midas is an accessible gaming controller which can turn any object or surface touched into a control interface. Designed to improve the gaming experience for people living with Muscular Dystrophy (MD), Midas acknowledges the lack of inclusive gaming hardware for people living with musculoskeletal disabilities. It challenges the idea of a traditional controller by proposing a solution which caters to an individual’s experience of MD, unique even within a similar diagnosis.

Sharks are majestic creatures that have, unfortunately, received a bad reputation. The Shark Sense VR exhibit was designed to challenge visitors to aquariums to see the world from a shark’s perspective and discover just how incredible these animals are. Based on the principles of experiential learning – the understanding that we are all able to better grasp concepts, and learn and retain information when we experience things firsthand – the experience is designed as an immersive virtual reality game.

When we discuss problems in policing, we rarely indict the records management software. There’s a common misconception that police are “high tech” when, in reality, 20% of departments are still using paper reports to file incidents. The rest are using outdated software that makes it impossible to share crime information across city lines. Problematic software has even resulted in criminals walking free based on technicalities like arrests not being processed in time. This was a decades old problem that no one else bothered to fix despite hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars being spent each year on it. With Cobalt Records Management System, the team at Mark43 redesigned police reporting workflows from the ground up, and built a user experience that officers could finally embrace instead of complain about.

Algramo is representative as it proposes a new way of selling basic products in neighborhood stores by breaking the traditional logistics chain. Algramo seeks to solve the “poverty tax” which occurs when families, due to liquidity problems, can not buy in large formats and buy in small formats which are up to 40% more expensive due to logistical inefficiencies, marketing and packaging.

India’s 200 million+ farmers did not have access to a personalized farmer support app. Seedworks partnered with NetBramha to create a comprehensive digital platform to address farmer problems.

Sonivivi is an interactive mobile application that helps people who are partially blind, or those who have recently lost their eyesight to become more self-sufficient in their daily life. As the intended use of Sonivivi is for the visually impaired, the interface does not rely on sight, but instead focuses on using gestural interfaces and audio feedback to navigate through three-dimensional audio space in order to improve the user's listening skills. Sonivivi offers an enjoyable and less labor-intensive alternative to traditional methods of learning. It facilitates a self-directed and empathetic learning experience and can be used as a support tool both for educational organizations and parents who have visually impaired children.

Color Tone is a set of tools, for people who are deaf or hard of hearing in Costa Rica, to experience the physicality of sound. It allows them to access sound and the information it contains by experiencing it through sight and touch. They can also use it with hearing people and share their experiences and feelings.