As noted in the first post in this infrequent series, our goal in “Notables” is to point out the work of others in the field of social innovation who have helped us improve our own practice.
This month we have two groups of people to thank:
1) Chief Product Officer at Project Wayfinder, Phil Holcombe; and
2) Lehigh University’s Creative Inquiry program and their Impact Fellowships.
First, I have written about Phil Holcombe’s work as a Educational Design Consultant and Graphic Designer before. His firms, first “PlusUs” and then the rebrand, “Form & Faculty” produced some of the most innovative and creative works of curriculum and marketing for customers from The Philadelphia Center for Architecture and Design to Friends Central. Phil has a degree Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and is just about one of the most gracious and intelligent people/designers I know. This past January, Phil zoomed in with us to briefly discuss the impact of design choices on how students created marketing and branding for their projects. His insights were clear, targeted and produced actionable change for many of our projects.
Phil was also one of the many people who took the time to offer feedback on our projects when we sent them out in early February to select members of Mr. Heidt’s Professional Learning Network. (see NOVA Lab Notable No. 2)
The second NOVA Lab Notable “thank you” of the month goes out to Julia Killar and the team of professors and advisors at Lehigh University’s Creative Inquiry program’s “Impact Fellowships.” Julia Killar, a former student in my sophomore English and NOVA Lab classes, is a current Sophomore at Lehigh and a member of their Global Impact Fellowship. She reached out to me a few months ago and helped me contact Lehigh’s Bill Whitney who allowed me to sit in on the Lehigh Valley geographic region’s Impact Fellow ships. And what great ideas they were! From Lehigh rIVR (an immersive VR system of games teaching about the Lehigh River Watershed) to a Collective Mapping project to track trash dumping in Southern Bethlehem, the students were engaged in such important work born of their own inspirations and aspirations but with community-wide impacts–exactly the criteria that drive NOVA Lab’s own Purpose Projects. I look forward to returning to sit on the second round of presentations in early May.
Both of these notable projects/people have offered us insights into how we might make NOVA Lab even better. There is always work to be done when the only standard is “better.” And nothing is better than trying to make the world a better place, for all species on spaceship earth. (For more on that, see our post on Futures Thinking from late October 2024.)
Innovation Lab 