[Social-sciences-list] Paid opportunity for blind or low vision participants: University of Pennsylvania: June 2017

[Walei Sabry]

Hello all,

Hope all is well. I thought you might be interested in the following opportunity.

This June, I am  collaborating with a professor at the University of Pennsylvania on a Design Thinking course and we would like to recruit folks from the blind community to participate and become co-designers with the students. This is a paid opportunity. If interested, please e-mail Sarah Lidgus at lidgus at gmail.com by May 19th. Also, feel free to forward this to anyone that you think may be interested. More details are below.

Message from Sarah Lidgus:
“I’m an adjunct professor in the Social Policy and Practice school at UPenn, and am recruiting 4-5 people who are blind or have low vision to be co-designers on student teams for the class Design Thinking for Social Impact this summer. 

The Class:
Design Thinking uses tools of design—interviewing, prototyping and iterative feedback—to take a more hands on, creative approach to problem solving. It is a practical, collaborative way to reimagine products, experiences, services and systems. This will be my fourth time running this particular course, and this year I am collaborating with Walei Sabry, the Digital Accessibility Coordinator for the NYC Mayor’s Office for people with disabilities. Walei is helping inform the curriculum and resources, as well as advising on how to make the class itself more accessible. 

Design Thinking is something you can learn only by doing, so each year we take on a design challenge together. This year, the question our class will be designing towards is: How might we create better accessibility for people who are new to the blind community?
 
Your Role:
Part of making this course more accessible and aligned with the stance of the philosophy of the disability rights movement is that we are recruiting 4-5 people who are blind or have low vision to be co-designers on our student design teams. You would be learning the design thinking process alongside students, as well as contributing your lived expertise in an on-going way. The hope is to have students understand how important it is to design with the people who might use a product or a service, rather than make something based on assumptions and biases. You would act as an embedded expert on the team, helping guide content and outcomes towards relevance and usefulness. No formal training is required; just your honest opinions and experience, which is required of everyone on the team.
 
Timing + Compensation:
The class is run more like an intensive workshop, meeting for 4 1/2  days in total during the summer session. You would be a full team member within a student design team, participating as a student would, learning about Design Thinking and helping craft a prototype and pitch with your team. As an expert, you would be classified as a guest contributor and would be compensated $400 for your time and would not be given any credit as a student. The time commitment is 9am to 5pm on Friday June 9th, Saturday June 10th, Friday June 16th and Saturday June 17th. (You may also choose to come to and present final pitches on Friday, June 23rd between 9am to 1pm, but this is not a requirement.)
 
About Sarah:
I am a designer myself; I grew up professionally in the design firm IDEO and have a practice called Small City New York. I have a specific focus on community-based projects, and have worked alongside organizations like the Center for Urban Pedagogy, the Laundromat Project, the Design Trust for Public Space, and the Public Policy Lab. Some of my favorite projects have created a community design school in Queens, a platform amplifying the art and activism of the South Bronx, and a communications campaign around nail salon workers rights across New York. Right now I’m the Designer in Residence at the NYC Mayor’s Office, working on a community-based technology project in Brownsville, Brooklyn.”
 
Best Regards,

-Walei