Innovation Map

Introduction

Developed for Illinois Tech for the new Kaplan Institute, the Innovation Map (Project Tetrahedron) is a digital platform which integrates campus resources (knowledge, people, places, events, tools, etc.) related to innovation and entrepreneurship into a unified interface to promote awareness, facilitate access, and guide people in navigating institutional structures and processes associated with resources.

My Role

As Assistant Academic Director of the Kaplan Institute, I owned this project and drove creative direction, team leadership, and delivery of assets among other aspects.

What

The platform presents as a meta-level map interface of the campus and surrounding city, which facilitates innovation and entrepreneurship resource awareness through discovery. The interface uses three tiers of information: Map, Nodes, and Offerings.

Map provides physical context and the ability to search for resources. Inspired by BJ Fogg’s behavioral model and work at the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, search filters help motivated users find specific kind of “ability increasing” resources they need to enable action:
know = information and knowledge
make = production support
meet = people and social events
get = material resources/supplies

Nodes have a physical location (e.g. workshop, faculty office, building, lab, etc.) and may offer both physical and digital resources. Nodes provide access details and use instructions for physical resources offerings. Direct links to digital resources creates a seamless bridge into a multitude of university information systems.

Offerings are the resources themselves. The interface provides direct access to digital systems that facilitate use physical resources, such as scheduling time with a CNC router in the shop, as well as purely digital offerings such as online courses.

Who

The Innovation map is for members of the Illinois Tech family (students, employees, and alumni) who want to find pathways and supports to help them bring their innovative ideas to light.

Innovators and entrepreneurs are already highly motivated, but need access to resources and the social/economic ecosystem that enables the development of concepts and launch of new enterprises.

Why

Our research and analysis of Illinois Tech’s current initiatives around innovation and entrepreneurship showed they are highly siloed, presenting three main barriers to innovators and entrepreneurs on campus:

awareness: even longtime campus community members don’t know the scope of what Illinois Tech has to offer.
access: people aren’t able to effectively use resources they know about.
navigation: people aren’t sure why or when to use given resources effectively to get their idea from the back of the napkin to market.

The Innovation Map reduces these barriers to help users to become aware of, access, and navigate the physical/digital resources and substantial body of institutional knowledge around innovation and entrepreneurship at Illinois Tech and surrounding community.