In January, the Academy partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to kickoff their Innovation Accelerator where teams across HHS ACF came together to learn human-centered design to address real-world challenges.
People from across ACF proposed ideas to improve the ACF grant application process, to improve internal coordination to better serve ACF recipients, and to provide equitable support and resources to better meet the needs of all grant recipients. From those ideas, 12 teams totaling 36 participants were selected to join the Innovation Accelerator, a 3-month long experience where teams actively apply human-centered design to their projects with coaching support from HHS coaches and UMD coaches: Christina Hnatov and Brooke Smith.
Christina, Brooke, and other Academy team members have collaborated with HHS over the years to design and lead human-centered design workshops to support various innovation accelerators from the HHS Idea Lab to the HHS ACF Innovation Accelerator.
There were a mix of new and returning participants in this most recent accelerator, creating a dynamic group of learners. Christina and Brooke designed and led the 4-day, virtual bootcamp to kick off the Innovation Accelerator focused on creating space for teams to explore the problem space as well as dive into the solution space through brainstorming and prototyping ideas. The virtual nature of the bootcamp didn’t stop teams from being creative, collaborating, and having fun. It included turning squiggles into birds, playing Taboo, putting tons of ideas on post-its, swapping stories, and building low-resolution prototypes.