Transdisciplinary design challenge aims to better address social disorder

Facilitating the interaction between students and industry in a way that is community focused is something University of Calgary community members kept in mind when collaborating with RadiCare Ventures, Innovate Calgary’s Social Innovation Hub and Mitacs, a national research organization.

The Social Innovation Design Challenge on Nov. 2, hosted by the Hub, will allow computer science and nursing students the opportunity to work together to tackle a real-world, data and visualization-related challenge faced by social enterprise industry partner RadiCare Ventures.

The team behind the event is Dr. Helen Ai He, BSc’07, MSc’10, PhD; computer science PhD student Mark Altosaar; prospective Master of Science in computer science student Paige So’Brien, BSc’24; and the Hub’s social innovation navigator, Eva Verity. 

The idea for the pilot community-driven initiative came about when He and her team realized the need for an opportunity to translate industry needs to well-matched student skillsets.

“The big problem is not that there's a lack of people on either end between students or industry, but that there isn't an avenue of communication between them,” says So’Brien, who will begin her master’s in January. 

“There's no opportunity to get to know each other before getting thrown straight into work, so we wanted to create that.”

Studying under He — the computer science assistant professor who proposed the idea for the challenge — is what interested So’Brien in helping run this pilot transdisciplinary program.

RadiCare Ventures, a Buy Social Canada Certified Social Enterprise, is focused on tackling Calgary’s most visible social-disorder challenges such as graffiti, vandalism and open drug use. Bill Zheng, managing director and co-founder of RadiCare, hopes that bringing together computer science and nursing students on the topic of data visualization and social impact will help to forge new ideas. 

At the end of the challenge series, one to two students whose skills and interests match with RadiCare’s goals will have the opportunity to work with Zheng and his company through a funded Mitacs Business Strategy Internship. This was made possible through support from Angelo Nwigwe, senior advisor in business development at Mitacs.

“We are very socially focused and that’s the core of our company,” says Zheng, who is also a full-time student in UCalgary’s Faculty of Nursing and co-founder of the Calgary Pop-Up Care Village.

“Ideally, the prospective intern is socially aware of the clientele that they're working with, but if they aren’t, that’s okay; the biggest thing RadiCare is looking for is the attitude of wanting to learn.”

The initial idea for the challenge stemmed from a presentation Zheng gave on RadiCare at the Hub’s Social Innovators Breakfast Club in July, which inspired He to start the collaboration. 

“Helen came up with the idea of the design challenge to be a space to facilitate interaction between students and industry in a way that’s community-focused,” So’Brien says.

The Social Innovation Hub is one of four innovation hubs managed by Innovate Calgary, providing critical supports for students, researchers and startups who have innovative solutions to complex social problems. The Hub is excited to be a convenor and collaborator on the challenge as it mutually benefits students and industry.

“It was clear our values and interests aligned with Helen’s,” says Verity. “And it was also great that we are collaborating with Bill on this, since he participated in the Hub’s Research to Social Innovation Incubator program.

“We’d like for the outcome of this design challenge to be sustainable — that the solution the students come up with will be something RadiCare can implement.”

While registration has closed for this year, students can expect another design challenge in 2025, with details still to come. 

“What’s needed for every challenge is case-by-case,” So’Brien says.

“So, as different problems arise, different demographics and backgrounds might be more helpful for that problem. So, there’s a possibility we might look for different faculties to participate.”

As a nursing student himself, Zheng wants others to know that a lot of the work these social enterprise industry partners do is transdisciplinary in nature, and he hopes this real-world opportunity can prepare students for the future and help his company gain ideas. 

“We really need to make sure our technology is aligned with the values of the staff members using it,” says Zheng. 

“I'm hoping that the perspectives of nursing and computer science students working on a technology piece helps them consider things that they may not have considered before.”