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An innovative team-building exercise in progress. I led different teams to engage and build rapport with each other through an innovative and creative exercise of creating structures using pasta sticks and marshmallows, emphasizing the importance of iteration, creativity, and curiosity.
I bring values of creativity, passion, empathy, and curiosity along with more than five years of mixed-methods research experience across different issue areas
By highlighting two important areas below, I paint a clear and compelling picture of why I should be hired for the design researcher role:
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An overview of how my background, vision, and values align with those of the IDEO's mission and vision and the needs of this role
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A summary of my mixed-methods, human-centered design, and participatory research work to demonstrate my expertise and skills in alignment with this role.
MY JOURNEY
Having been born in Bihar, India (currently a state with the lowest socio-economic human development conditions in the country) and brought up in a family embodying a blend of Bihari culture and modernity of the city of Delhi (the national capital), I have been a witness and have experiences socio-economic and gender issues first hand.
A journey from Bihar, Delhi to Chicago
My journey from Bihar to Delhi, and then to Chicago with a brief stop in London, has been an exceptionally tough one not just when compared to individuals in the Global West but also with the average Indian and South Asian but these experiences have shaped my core values - working for, with and towards community and working on projects that have purpose and create impact for those who they are being designed for.
My work in innovating and supporting communities started in India during the pandemic where I started a youth collective to support families in need of support for food and helped women and children navigate lives through the pandemic against abuse and violence. My co-founders and I brought together a team of 100 volunteers, community leaders, and community organizations to come together and work towards the common goal of supporting communities and their well-being during the pandemic.
Sang, a youth collective, initiated by me and my co-founders served 20,000 families with food support and raised USD 60,000 in 9 months. We won the Clinton Global Initiative University Challenge for supporting women and young children in distress of abuse and violence.
Here's a picture of children who received coloring books and colors from our team and donors for maintaining socio-emotional learning during the pandemic and lockdowns.
The picture was captured and shared with consent.
To learn and grow in research skills, understanding of different policies and industries, and create social and sustainable impact for economic and social development, I completed a graduate degree in Public Policy and have been working to support non-profits and government define, scope, innovate and solve policy and socio-economic problems through the use of mixed-methods, racial equity, collaborative and participatory research with communities and most importantly grounded in human-centered design principles. Some of my mixed-methods work is highlighted below.
During my time at grad school, I led a student organization dedicated to engaging with professors and practitioners of behavioral sciences with students using behavioral sciences in policymaking and understanding different human behaviors and biases. This picture is from an event I organized with Professor Nick Epley who led a session on "Deep Talk"
NEXT STEPS
In September 2023, I joined the 'Storytelling for Influence' course at IDEO. My experience with the course helped me shape my idea for a startup I am now working on developing digital technology to teach music and singing to people.
The course helped me navigate through my journey to understand my story and why I care about things. It reminded me of my mother who could not learn music because of gender barriers, of the social stigma associated with singing, and the gatekeeping of singing and music forms to upper castes and classes of the society.
The memory helped me craft my narrative and idea into a startup product idea called 'Every Voice Can Sing' and motivation to start working on a dream of making music innovative, accessible, and within reach of every person. ​You can take a peek at my prototype here, and the minimum viable product here.
Watch the marketing video of Every Voice Can Sing explaining what the app offers to its users
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