Seattle Social Good Series

IxDA Seattle and Open Seattle present an action-based interdisciplinary project aimed at producing actionable solutions to support the needs of local community organizations. We're bringing together members of the design and tech communities to work on select projects for local social good organizations to show how design thinking can have a tangible & measurable impact on issues facing the greater Seattle community.

PAST PROJECT AREAS

Civic Innovation

Supporting Organization: Democracy Lab
Problem: Procurement in Government benefits more established projects
Research Question: What motivates civic hackers to start projects?

Homelessness

Supporting Organization: DESC
Problem: Different shelters have different data-collection &amp; don’t share information well
Research Question: How do workers at different shelter systems collect information?

Transportation

Supporting Organization: SDOT
Problem: Most access tools for mobility require a smartphone or access to technology
Research Question: What do digitally isolated community members look for from transportation or at a new location?

Criminal Justice

Supporting Organization: OPCD
Problem: Several communities lack a voice in the direction of our local planning
Research Question: How do we help eliminate racial disparities in Seattle’s criminal justice system?

Immigrant and Refugee Resources

Supporting Organization: Mimi Global Goods
Problem: Refugees struggle to integrate into a new community &amp; find work
Research Question: How might we offer an automated self-service relationship to our customers that is supported by a direct, personal assistance relationship as and when needed?

Community Engagement

Supporting Organization: Pinion
Problem: Elected officials lack methods to engage with citizens for policy decisions
Research Question: What prevents citizens from engaging on policy issues?

Housing

Supporting Organization: 
Problem: More and more people living in Seattle are being forced to move out of the city due to increases in housing costs.
Research Question: How might we design a solution to help reduce this problem?

Past Events in this series:

Hackathon + Final Presentations

Final push for all projects will culminate in this 14-hour hackathon followed by group presentations during the Seattle Design Festival!

September 15–16 | Presentations Saturday: 6p–8p | @ Socrata

Workshop: Making Design Actionable

Learn how to take your user research and apply it to solve a design problem in this workshop lead by Kevin Decker and Melissa Quintanilha from Dupla Studios.

Wednesday, August 23 | 6p-9p | @ Zillow

Workshop: Interviewing Users

Learn how to interview users and get the right data for your project in this workshop lead by Devesh Desai of Microsoft.

Wednesday, August 2 | 6p-9p | @ HBO

Civic Mixer

Organizations and members of the community introduce their organizations and share their mission and vision with creatives looking to support local organizations and help launch new, innovative projects.

Saturday, July 22 | 10a–1p & 1:30p–4p | @ General Assembly

Contact info@ixdaseattle.org with any questions.