Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires

Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires

Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires

Living in California, one quickly becomes familiar with the images of roaring walls of fire that seem to overtake the news cycle every summer. The dangers of such events are obvious and have come to seem inevitable. But what if there were other ways of taking care of both the environment and our communities? What if there were ways to prevent the disaster, rather than react to it? This Spring, The Design Lab is partnering with The San Diego Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE Lab to help transition our approach to wildfires from reaction to prevention.

The collaboration, a pitch-style challenge titled “Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires,” will be spearheaded by Chief Data Science Officer of The Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE founder Ilkay Altintas and Design Lab Program Designer Kevin Popovic. Working together, both institutions have produced an interactive and engaging program that will help members of the general public understand the benefits and safety that come with prescribed burns, as well as the dangers of wildfire suppression and its creation of wildfire deficits. 

The “Mindshifts on Megafires” calls upon teams of innovative UCSD students eager to engage with real-world problems and solutions to come together and construct a convincing pitch, the best of which will be rewarded with a summer internship at The San Diego Supercomputer Center and the opportunity to bring their ideas to life. Students looking to participate can either sign up as a team or individually, those who register as individuals will subsequently be matched with a team. All teams will have access to subject matter experts and materials to aid them as they build their pitches. No prior experience is required, and students of all disciplines and majors are welcome to participate.

The official Design Challenge kickoff will take place this Thursday, April 7th, at 4:00 P.M in room 202 of the newly built Design and Innovation Building. To receive kickoff information, as well as specific details about the challenge, prospective participants are encouraged to register at the event page: https://designlab.ucsd.edu/designathon-mindshifts-on-megafires/

For a full list of Design-A-Thon related dates and events, see below.

Key Mindshift on Megafires dates and events:

  • April 7 @ 4 PM – Design Challenge unveiled at kickoff 
  • April 15 – Registration & design-thinking workshop, lightning talks, and mentor sessions 
  • April 16 @ 11:59 PM – Submissions due
  • April 20 @ 5 PM – Project showcase at Design@Large

Living in California, one quickly becomes familiar with the images of roaring walls of fire that seem to overtake the news cycle every summer. The dangers of such events are obvious and have come to seem inevitable. But what if there were other ways of taking care of both the environment and our communities? What if there were ways to prevent the disaster, rather than react to it? This Spring, The Design Lab is partnering with The San Diego Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE Lab to help transition our approach to wildfires from reaction to prevention.

The collaboration, a pitch-style challenge titled “Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires,” will be spearheaded by Chief Data Science Officer of The Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE founder Ilkay Altintas and Design Lab Program Designer Kevin Popovic. Working together, both institutions have produced an interactive and engaging program that will help members of the general public understand the benefits and safety that come with prescribed burns, as well as the dangers of wildfire suppression and its creation of wildfire deficits. 

The “Mindshifts on Megafires” calls upon teams of innovative UCSD students eager to engage with real-world problems and solutions to come together and construct a convincing pitch, the best of which will be rewarded with a summer internship at The San Diego Supercomputer Center and the opportunity to bring their ideas to life. Students looking to participate can either sign up as a team or individually, those who register as individuals will subsequently be matched with a team. All teams will have access to subject matter experts and materials to aid them as they build their pitches. No prior experience is required, and students of all disciplines and majors are welcome to participate.

The official Design Challenge kickoff will take place this Thursday, April 7th, at 4:00 P.M in room 202 of the newly built Design and Innovation Building. To receive kickoff information, as well as specific details about the challenge, prospective participants are encouraged to register at the event page: https://designlab.ucsd.edu/designathon-mindshifts-on-megafires/

For a full list of Design-A-Thon related dates and events, see below.

Key Mindshift on Megafires dates and events:

  • April 7 @ 4 PM – Design Challenge unveiled at kickoff 
  • April 15 – Registration & design-thinking workshop, lightning talks, and mentor sessions 
  • April 16 @ 11:59 PM – Submissions due
  • April 20 @ 5 PM – Project showcase at Design@Large

Living in California, one quickly becomes familiar with the images of roaring walls of fire that seem to overtake the news cycle every summer. The dangers of such events are obvious and have come to seem inevitable. But what if there were other ways of taking care of both the environment and our communities? What if there were ways to prevent the disaster, rather than react to it? This Spring, The Design Lab is partnering with The San Diego Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE Lab to help transition our approach to wildfires from reaction to prevention.

The collaboration, a pitch-style challenge titled “Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires,” will be spearheaded by Chief Data Science Officer of The Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE founder Ilkay Altintas and Design Lab Program Designer Kevin Popovic. Working together, both institutions have produced an interactive and engaging program that will help members of the general public understand the benefits and safety that come with prescribed burns, as well as the dangers of wildfire suppression and its creation of wildfire deficits. 

The “Mindshifts on Megafires” calls upon teams of innovative UCSD students eager to engage with real-world problems and solutions to come together and construct a convincing pitch, the best of which will be rewarded with a summer internship at The San Diego Supercomputer Center and the opportunity to bring their ideas to life. Students looking to participate can either sign up as a team or individually, those who register as individuals will subsequently be matched with a team. All teams will have access to subject matter experts and materials to aid them as they build their pitches. No prior experience is required, and students of all disciplines and majors are welcome to participate.

The official Design Challenge kickoff will take place this Thursday, April 7th, at 4:00 P.M in room 202 of the newly built Design and Innovation Building. To receive kickoff information, as well as specific details about the challenge, prospective participants are encouraged to register at the event page: https://designlab.ucsd.edu/designathon-mindshifts-on-megafires/

For a full list of Design-A-Thon related dates and events, see below.

Key Mindshift on Megafires dates and events:

  • April 7 @ 4 PM – Design Challenge unveiled at kickoff 
  • April 15 – Registration & design-thinking workshop, lightning talks, and mentor sessions 
  • April 16 @ 11:59 PM – Submissions due
  • April 20 @ 5 PM – Project showcase at Design@Large

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Lilly Irani: Seeking to the Community Behind the Wheel in Tech

Lilly Irani is currently an associate professor in the Communication department and an affiliate faculty member at The UCSD Design Lab. She’s the winner of the 2020 International Communication Association Outstanding Book Award and the 2019 Diana Forsythe Prize for her book Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India. Inspired by the work of Lucy Suchman, Lilly’s research in the field of design extends beyond simply “asking what’s right and wrong and for whom,” but encompasses giving workers and communities “an actual voice in shaping the technology” and getting “political agency over the technologies that we use,” as she put it. 

Her involvement with the community is nothing short of impressive. For ten years, Lilly co-designed and maintained a website for online gig workers on the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform to let workers share reviews of employers and jobs to take or avoid. Over the last two years, she has grown the software platform into a worker advocacy organization run by Mechanical Turk workers themselves, so they can also organize to improve their work conditions in ways that matter to them. 

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Be on your best behavior: San Diego is being judged this week

By Phillip Molnar, San Diego Union Tribune

San Diego and Tijuana are throwing a party for just one man this week, and you’ve probably never heard his name.

Montreal native Bertrand Derome, managing director of the World Design Organization, is getting the red carpet treatment across two nations as the cities vie for the title of World Design Capital.

The award means a global spotlight on the region and lots of free advertising. Selected every two years, the Montreal-based World Design Organization picks a different city as its “capital.” Some previous winners have been Seoul, Helsinki, Cape Town and Mexico City. San Diego and Tijuana decided to apply together as a binational region.

The festivities started Sunday night with a jazz concert, light show and chic party for Derome at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park. There were only about 200 people at the event for a venue that can hold 3,500. The $85 million shell on the San Diego Bay opened in August.

“It’s a great city and an amazing venue. I have to say I’m pretty impressed by the design communities that came together,” Derome said at the event.
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Individuals have their own inherent biases. Most are harmless – preferred foods, favorite cars, go-to streaming services. However, biases tied to race, gender, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status have serious consequences.

This is particularly true in medicine. Unintentional, hidden, biases may perpetuate healthcare disparities. While providers are not acting out of malice, these attitudes could have significant impacts on patient care.
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