Detroit Impact:
Design Thinking for Social Innovation

About Detroit Impact | How To Participate in the Brainstorms | Topics and Organizations | Detroit Tour | Exploration Detroit Video: Johnny Knoxville Tours the Motor City

About Detroit Impact

Detroit Impact is a three-part workshop organized by the Revitalization & Business Conference planning team, in collaboration with the Net Impact Conference and the design thinking firm, IDEO. This innovative event will take the real challenges and opportunities six Detroit-based organizations face, and explore these issues through brainstorming sessions, interactive design case studies, and strategic consulting engagements over a three-month period.

The kickoff for Detroit Impact will take place at the 2010 Net Impact Conference in the form of crowd-sourced brainstorms on Friday. Through participation in these facilitated “ideation” sessions, Net Impact Conference attendees have the chance to apply design thinking to real-world situations and use their skill sets to have an immediate impact on the Detroit community.

Through the interactive design displays and the IDEO-led workshop, conference attendees will also learn how to apply design thinking to solve other local and international social issues including access to clean water, health education, and food distribution systems.

IDEO is a design and innovation consulting firm that creates impact through design. IDEO’s focus lies at the intersection of insight and inspiration, and is informed by business, technology, and culture.

How To Participate in the Brainstorms

Each of the six organizations will host three brainstorm sessions at the following times in their assigned rooms:

Session 1 | 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Session 2 | 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM
Session 3 | 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM

Brainstorm sessions will be open to participants on a first come, first served basis. Conference attendees should arrive ten minutes prior to scheduled session time to ensure participation. There is only one rule for the brainstorm sessions: there is no such thing as a bad idea!

If participants cannot participate in a full brainstorm, but would like to contribute their ideas, they are encouraged to do so on materials provided immediately outside of the brainstorming sessions.

Topics and Organizations

Strategic Real Estate Development

Ross Room 0216: ASTI Environmental in collaboration with Windham Group

ASTI Environmental has provided environmental and engineering services to industry and government since 1985. ASTI has teamed up with the property development firm, Windham Group, and the Detroit Housing commission for their Detroit Impact case.

Detroit’s sprawling urban landscape has incited a number of discussions surrounding the issue of density and place-making in the fields of real estate development and urban planning. Windham Group and ASTI are working on a mixed-use, multiphase real estate project in the City of Detroit. The workshop teams will explore how to revitalize a blighted and abandoned area by creating a sense of place that catalyzes the community, begins the process of reinvestment, and connects the new development to the surrounding neighborhoods. In addition, they will consider how to use Neighborhood Enterprise Zones, Brownfield Incentives, Landbanks, Low-income housing tax credits, and other creative financing tools to ensure the financial viability of this unique project.
Read the full case »

The Power of Pro Bono

Ross Room 0218: United Way

United Way for Southeastern Michigan's George W. Romney Volunteer Center is committed to linking volunteer groups with opportunities to serve the community, empowering agencies to use volunteers effectively, advocating for volunteerism, increasing the number of volunteers involved in the community, and developing leadership skills of volunteers to build civic capacity and infrastructure in our communities.

United Way hopes to better equip local nonprofit organizations to identify and manage corporate and business volunteers who want to contribute their skills, while also arming those professional volunteers with the tools to better contribute their expertise to the community. A powerful professional volunteer system can allow nonprofits access to the business skills and experience they need to develop and implement sound business strategies, increase their capabilities and improve their organizational infrastructure. The challenge is in building and communicating an effective pro-bono system for Southeast Michigan.
Read the full case »

Marketing as an Educational Tool

Ross Room 1216: Get Fresh Detroit

Get Fresh Detroit (GFD) is a produce packaging and distribution operation which increases access to fresh and healthy food in under-served communities by transforming the retail of produce into a profitable and sustainable operation for liquor stores and corner stores.

In many of the communities that GFD serves, and in particular our retail outlets, fresh and healthy food has never been available. GFD's retailers are themselves unfamiliar with carrying fresh and healthy foods, creating an interesting challenge in changing customer perception with even basic aspects such as product availability, utility, and health benefits. GFD seeks to promote sales of their products through an innovative campaign to transform GFD retailers into the neighborhood choice for fresh produce and educate Detroit's consumers on the benefits of eating healthy.
Read the full case »

Innovations in Distribution Channels for an Urban Farm

Ross Room 1218: Recovery Park

Recovery Park is a planned development in the city of Detroit that will include urban farming, education, commercial and housing developments, and other projects that will help the community as a whole. It is a projected 10-year, multi-million dollar project that will help the city and its residents recover through economic and other empowerment.

This broad-based coalition is vested and committed to helping the city recover through an urban farming and land re-purposing development in the city. At the heart of this effort are twin goals related to creating jobs and to providing a source of healthy food to local communities. One challenge for Recovery Park lies in the development of channels that can efficiently distribute produce to both institutional and individual customers, while also creating employment opportunities for city residents.
Read the full case »

National Growth Strategies for a Local Team

Ross Room 2216: Dermanaut

Dermanaut provides dermatologists an electronic way to accurately and efficiently record patient exams, replacing the need for troublesome paper charts. Dermanuat is a graduate of the innovative BizdomU Entrepreneurship Academy program founded by Dan Gilbert of Quicken Loans, which ultimately led to two rounds of funding through the BizdomU Fund.

Dermanaut has recently launched their software-as-a-service application and is converting beta clients to sales. The challenge facing the Detroit-based startup is how to expand the sales on a national front, requiring multiple face-to-face interactions, with a small, local sales force. After gaining so much support from local incubators such as BizdomU and Tech Town, what are the next steps for this small medical technology company?
Read the full case »

Capturing Detroit’s Assets

Ross Room 2218: NEI in collaboration with the Detroit Regional Chamber and Michigan State University

The New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan (NEI) is an innovative philanthropic effort to accelerate the transition of metro Detroit to an innovation-based economy that expands opportunity for all. NEI has teamed up with the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce and leading supply chain experts from Michigan State University to develop a strategy to take advantage of the logistics, distribution, and transportation assets in the region.

Southeast Michigan is one of the few places in the US with a multi-modal hub for air, land, sea, and rail freight. At the centerpiece of NEI’s strategy is attracting new industries to take advantage of these assets. The workshop teams will pick one of the targeted industries and develop a proposal for how these assets would create value for industry and what steps the region needs to take to attract them. This workshop has the opportunity to impact up to 60,000 new jobs for the region and will influence state-level economic development initiatives.
Read the full case »

Detroit Tour

This Saturday, Net Impact will be arranging a tour of what was once the nation’s fourth largest city. Over the years, much has been said about Detroit: “The Motor City,” “The Arsenal of Democracy,” “The Murder Capital of the World,” and “The Renaissance City.” While all of these offer snapshots of this dynamic, yet challenged, city, to truly understand Detroit one must see it first hand. The tour will end at Eastern Market, the largest open air Farmer’s Market in the country, and will give visitors a taste of the progress that the city is making, and the cautionary tale it provides for all American cities.

Please join us Saturday at 8 AM!

Learn more »

Sign up for the tour now »

Exploration Detroit Video: Johnny Knoxville Tours the Motor City

Part of the Palladium Exploration Series, Detroit Lives follows Johnny Knoxville as he uncovers both the tragedy and promise that exists in the Motor City.

There is no better film that displays all of the positive and the negatives that unfold throughout the neighborhoods of this iconic American city.