Social Hack is a conference run by Design for America that teaches community members, specifically students, the importance of implementing the human-centered design process in the real world. Students from UIUC will be in teams of 4-5 and spend the weekend focusing on how we can approach climate change and sustainability from a human-centered design perspective. By the end of the conference, student teams will have presented their ideas to judges, ranging from local companies to Chicago based design firms. Winners will receive the opportunity and financial support to continue building out their ideas with guidance from Design for America mentors and campus/ community partners.

Innovation is incredibly important, but most neglect the importance of empathy and need-finding before brainstorming. This disconnect between intention and actions once implemented derive from misunderstanding community needs. Many students want to work with partner organizations, but initiating these relationships is the biggest hurdle exacerbated by figuring out how to maintain productivity with that partner. Teaching this process is essential because it is a universal skill that any major would benefit from knowing in their career. At Design for America, our members tackle social issues using this design process. Because our membership is limited by project capacity, we turn away many passionate students interested in empathy-based social innovation. With multiple Maker/Innovation Spaces popping up on campus as well as the new Siebel Center for Design, we want to create a broad opportunity to not only help attending communities partners but teach effective and responsible ways to start projects. By opening the door to empathy based ideas, our goal is that our community partners can actually execute on these ideas and work with students passionate about the issue through Social Hack.