The following is an excerpt from 2022 FutureFounder Innovators Magali and Adrian´s Demo Day project as part of the FutureFounder StartupReadiness training. FutureFounder Innovators take part of a Hackathon where entepeneurs ,tech pros and design pros gather to create a product in a short amount of time.
-FutureFounder Team
Introduction
A Hackathon is a marathon-like event where entrepreneurs, tech pros, and design pros gather to create a prototype for a new product in an incredibly short amount of time. Our hackathon project was based on the design thinking model.
Design Thinking, the method behind the investigation
During the fourth month of our StartupReadiness program, we were challenged by FutureFounder to discuss huge social & environmental problems in our region and try to solve them through design thinking. But what is design thinking? Design thinking is a problem solver, end-user-focused approach in an innovative way. The process has different steps that are not necessarily linear, having the ability to test the prototype and iterate when required.
The product
After a general discussion, we were divided into different groups and assigned a topic that we wanted to solve. Our topic was Gender Violence. Following our first brainstorming session as a group, we had the first idea and decided in which direction we would go with our investigation.
My partner is an expert in economics. We were inspired by him to start analyzing hard data and reading articles. Gender violence is such an extensive topic that affects half of the world’s population and we needed to refine our research.
Subsequent to those discussions, we found out: teenage pregnancy in Latin America is really high and Mexico is the country with the highest teen pregnancy rates in the region. This affirmation led to our problem statement: “Young Latin-American girls need access to sexual education, contraceptive methods, and knowledge about the options available to them.”
We consolidated five distinct ideas and then decided on a name for our upcoming prototype. The next step in our process was pitching those ideas to fellows & interviewees so we could gather customer feedback.
FutureFounder Demo Day
I was lucky enough to have great working chemistry with my partner. That allowed us to have successful working sessions and made the process smooth and easy. The final step of the process was to develop a pitch deck so we could present our idea.
Just a week before the pitch, we found out influential judges were going to be present that day and that's when we started feeling butterflies.
Pitch day arrived and we were excited and nervous. We had rehearsed and timed our presentation so many times we lost count. Our team, MexPro, was the first pitch at the hackathon. We received important feedback that we will take as teachings forever. Even though our idea did not win, we still felt winners at heart for having the opportunity we had.
Key Takeaways
A few months ago I would have never imagined I would be part of a Hackathon and pitch our idea to successful Founders who also happen to be Ivy-league schools graduates.
One of the key takeaways of this experience was learning how to work together combining our weaknesses and strengths in different areas to our advantage during the process. Doing lots of research and understanding our end-user was essential to comprehend our problem and how we could tackle it and be protecting our future
A final piece of advice: when deep diving into Design thinking, no matter what the subject to solve, one has to keep an open mind and be prepared for everything. It is absolutely necessary not to let the background, ideas, and judgments get in the way of the investigation.
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