Parsons Elab 2016 Report by greendigs

PARSONS ELAB 2016 REPORT

PARSONS ENTREPRENEURIAL LAB

ELAB REPORT 2016 | PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL OF DESIGN

PARSONS ENTREPRENEURIAL LAB

PARSONS ELAB 2016 REPORT ACKNOWLEDGMENT Joel Towers, Executive Dean, Parsons School of Design Jane Pirone, Dean, School of Design Strategies

OUR TEAM DIRECTOR Rhea Alexander | alexanrc@newschool.edu Assistant Professor of Strategic Design and Management Research Director and Founder of ELab Co-Director MS SDM School of Design Strategies RESEARCH COLLABORATOR 2016-17 Aaron Fry, Associate Professor of Studio Methods Student Administrators 2015-16 and 2016-17 Samar Ladhib Lissa Fedrizzi Vanya Mittal Francisca Severino Limassol Zok

Website and Social Media 2015-16 and 2016-17 Pauline Hadad Amarie Baker Vanya Mittal

Research Assistants 2015-16 and 2016-17 Samar Ladhib Harold Padilla

Volunteers 2015-16 and 2016-17 Nick Morozowich Nadine Chehade Daniela Golby

www.parsonselab.com www.twitter.com/parsonselab www.facebook.com/parsonselab

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CONTENTS

Overview

What the ELab Offers 9

What it means to be design-driven

What it means to be impact or purpose driven

Where We Offer It

What it means to test a distributed business model 19

How We Deliver It

Elab Pillars

Programs Delivered

INNOVATE NYC

12mo Incubator

Fellowship Offering

Mentorship

Summer Seats

Research Conducted 27

Methodology

Publications

Data Collection and Reports

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Who is the Elab

Mentors

Partners

Advisors

What We Accomplished 41

Grants + Development 41

Community Events 42

2016 Fellows

2017 Fellows

Goals for 2017 58 Conclusion 59

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OVERVIEW

It’s no news that entrepreneurship is at an all time high. With the onset of the global freelance economy, analysts predict by 2020 over half of our national economy will be driven by freelancers and entrepreneurs. Within this growing trend, New York City is the fastest growing startup technology center in the country today according to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Digital.NYC, the official online hub of the New York City startup and technology ecosystem. Picking up on this trend, universities across the city and nation have initiatives to support recent graduates in the startup space with incubators and accelerators. NYU Acre cleantech accelerator, Columbia Entrepreneurship (CE), Pratt’s BF+DA, City College’s Zahn Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and more. De Blasio also has launched WE NYC (Women Entrepreneurs New York City) which is aimed at expanding the economic potential of women entrepreneurs across the five boroughs. New York City leads the nation in the number of women entrepreneurs thriving in our neighborhoods. A white paper released by SBS and supported by Citi reveals that women-owned businesses across the five boroughs employ over 190,000 people and generate approximately $50 billion in sales. In the past decade, women-owned firms grew by 43%, compared to 39% in overall business growth and 25% growth in men-owned businesses. Over the past three years, our impact entrepreneurship program has provided funding, mentorship, and skill building workshops to 21 teams comprised of nearly 60 people. Of those selected for these programs, 80% of teams have been led by women and more than half by students from underrepresented communities. In 2014 The New School pulled together a cross-school work group and partnership with Career Services and International Student and Scholar Services to develop a pilot informational program for international students called “INTERpreneurship.” Also across campus the PFC has set up a task force to research and document any and all university-wide initiatives that support entrepreneurship. Couple this with the development within SDS of the MS program in Strategic

ELAB REPORT 2016 | PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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ELAB IS A DESIGN-LED BUSINESS LAB THAT IS DEDICATED TO THE RESEARCH AND PRACTICE OF DESIGN-LED IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

Design and Management (the fastest growing graduate program, launched in 2012) where approx 30% of the graduates develop business ideas they wish to launch after graduation. It is within this context and discourse that the Parsons Entrepreneurial Lab (http://sds.parsons. edu/elab/) was born in the school of SDS to cater to recent alum from the 4 graduate programs as a lab to develop programs, research, and support mechanisms for entrepreneurship within our community. The Elabâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s concept was build upon an external partnership Desis Lab and Dean Mears forged between CSI (centre for social innovation) and Parsonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; School of Design Strategies to award hots seats to students in graduate programs. In 2014, Professor Rhea Alexander was asked to manage the program as part of the external partnership committee. Building upon this relationship, coupled with practices emerging from the new collaborative economy and inspiration from distributed business models, Professor Alexander developed proposal for a new type of academic business incubator during her research that would potentially be low cost and fill a growing need at the university. The relationship with CSI was leveraged and expanded to create a pilot program whose objectives were to award hot seats in sector specific co-working communities and incubators across the city with an integrated support program that involved individualized mentorship, benchmarks and roadmaps, community, workshops and support in the critical first year of inception of businesses. At the end of 2014, Alexander was awarded funds from the Dan and Gloria Bohan Foundation and the School of Design Strategies to build and test the initial framework through 2015 and again in 2016 and the Parsons Entrepreneurial Lab was founded. The Parsons Entrepreneurial Lab (ELab) was designed to address an emergent need to bridge the academic experience with applied practice for graduate students at Parsons School of Design, to help transition them from student to successful entrepreneurs and changemakers.

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ELAB REPORT 2016 | PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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WHAT THE ELAB OFFERS WHAT IT MEANS TO TEST A DISTRIBUTED BUSINESS MODEL Today the Elab offers post-curricular and extracurricular programs for design-driven impact entrepreneurs, research in entrepreneurship and research and experimentation in innovation in entrepreneurship education. Our programs offered target various community members along their journey through the university experience. First as student, then as recent alumni and finally as long-term alumni giving back. Part of our goal is to create a supportive lab where community members can participate and support one another at any stage in their relationship with the university. One program in particular, the ELab 12 Month Incubator aims to support undergraduate, graduate students and alumni starting up. ELab also extends the opportunity even farther out: Alumni with long years of experience are able to give back through endowment and mentorship, helping to support this mission with their expertise to raise the bar of success in our community. Rhea Alexander has spearheaded the initiative upon receiving a grant for the Dan and Gloria Bohan Foundation, School based Funds grant and a FT Faculty Research Grant from Parsons School of Design while the other faculty have transitioned out of their prior roles and remain on as advisors. Together with a team of passionate student administrators, researchers, developers, volunteers and partners from across the city, we have spent this year building out a robust lab filled with promise.

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WHAT IT MEANS TO BE DESIGN-DRIVEN: USING OUR OWN “DESIGN INTELLIGENT” PROCESS The Parsons Design Intelligence process takes a holistic and systemic approach, fusing the iterative design thinking process rooted in design research with economic rationality, business logic, and organizational reality. Looking at the complexity and context of a business within the analysis. We emphasize realignment of all the parts of the organization, not just its innovation processes taking a bottom up co-creative approach to innovation. Our focus is on the research, co-creation and prototyping to iteratively inform our business developments. We believe this leads to superior business results, enhanced sustainability and greater social value.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE IMPACT OR PURPOSE DRIVEN In contrast to the traditional academic incubators, ELab is distinguished by Parsons’ design thinking methodologies and the progressive roots of The New School. ELab has social entrepreneurship, sustainability, and TBL (Triple Bottom Line) values and principles embedded in its DNA. It aims to support and strengthen student evolution from academic-to-applied practice through extra-curricular programming, workshops, and mentorship in a variety of practical business and lean design processes to enable them to develop a minimum viable product and gain traction, preparing their new ventures to compete and thrive in the post-recession landscape.

“

“We love being at the Center for Social Innovation. You meet just amazing people who give you insight into any type of technical and design questions. You are connected with people who have a lot of entrepreneurship experience.” ~ Gabor Tankovics, 2016 Elab Fellow and founder of Dartboard

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WHERE WE OFFER IT WHAT IT MEANS TO TEST A DISTRIBUTED BUSINESS MODEL ELab is a prototype or model of today’s distributed workplace with its lean operating budgets, lack of a specific physical locale (ELab does not have a physical space but it is housed, conceptually, within The New School), and distributed (rather than centralized) model –embedding its fellows within co-working spaces or incubators in the greater NYC startup community– it is therefore easily scalable. Our network model is a system where value is co-created and exchanged, in a distributed way, through a network of participants. Components of ELab’s networked model are based on the following components: •

Existing networked business models

•

Value exchange networks

•

Peer-to-peer sharing of access to goods

•

Design

processes

problem

solving,

iteration and lean prototyping •

Scalable business model, since the ELab

and services

model is not restricted by any physical

•

Bottom-up values exchange

location it is an inexpensive way to support

•

User-generated content

future entrepreneurs.

A considerable part of ELab’s design ethos emphasizes sharing, testing, learning, and launching, we offer some tools and activities to encourage our community to work together: •

Meet-ups that enable fellows, mentors and

LMHQ to match their needs to the expertise

partners to share information and skills/

of the community

services, such as user experience design or

•

graphic design •

•

industry experts

Design Jams and Hackathons aiming to

•

Networking events that enable fellows to

attract passionate people with various

meet potential collaborators or service

expertise to collaborate on answering

providers, learn more about what other

fellows’ immediate needs

entrepreneurs

Private area in our website in which fellows

exchange resources and skill-sets

and •

Mentorship by longstanding alumni and

administrators

can

useful

•

are

working

on,

and

Perks to help startups better run their

resources

businesses - Hire Luther, Google Cloud

Membership in sector specific incubators

Platform

and coworking spaces, such as NY Designs,

•

Center for Social Innovation, Civic Hall and

Collaboration with external partners, such as Google’s “30 Weeks” program.

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HOW WE DELIVER IT ELAB PILLARS ELab has created a six-point strategy plan. It is intended to target all the stakeholders within Parsons’ entrepreneurial ecosystem at all the stages in the growth of an entrepreneur. With this strategy, ELab aims to: build awareness and promote entrepreneurship within the community; support entrepreneurs and help them thrive through creation of a solid program structure and network; engage experienced entrepreneurs to co-create a collaborative environment and, support startups sustainably in a self-sustaining ecosystem around entrepreneurship and innovation.

“

“E-Lab really made my wish come true. Before I got to E-Lab, I just had an idea. Now I have an actual company. E-Lab has given me networking opportunities, as well as required expertise. Our company is has grown by 28% since we started the program.” ~ Shahrouz Varshabi, ELab Fellow and founder of Designity

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01// INFORM For current students we offer a series of possible opportunities to try their hand at entrepreneurship thru workshop, information sessions, INNOVATE NYC Program and thru design jams, research assistants and administrative opportunities. â&#x20AC;˘

Meetups and workshops for current students

Aimed at building awareness of our offerings, targeting current graduate students to invite them in shaping and volunteering at the ELab and thinking about applying to our various programs. â&#x20AC;˘

Info Session about our 12 Mon Fellowship Program

Aimed at informing people about the advantages of joining the ELab, we had two Info Sessions throughout the year of 2016. Both were well attended with more than 150 attendees each, and also counted on the presence and support of Dean Jane Pirone, Dean Anne Gaines, Associate Dean Lisa Norton, and our partners (CSI, NYDesigns, LMHQ, and BLIP), and current/past fellows (Designing The We, Art Tap X, Designity and Dartboard) for their informative and inspiring talks.

User Testing Workshop

Info Session

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02// EMPOWER We offer boot camp workshops to help current students and alumni to better prepare to apply for ELab’s 12 Month Fellowship Program. Bootcamp 1:

Bootcamp 2:

Building a business plan and how

Design Thinking for Startups

to use a business model canvas

03// COLLABORATE Collaboration is a key value in innovation. Therefore we value forging relationships inside the university community and outside in the greater NYC ecosystem. Engaging all potential stakeholders in a decentralized fashion hoping to spread community engagement. This year ELab partnered with the graduate program in Strategic Design and Management for its 3rd annual Design Intelligence conference which attracted over 200 people internationally. Focused on The Future of Work, the Conference was a full day of student organized events, presentations and workshops. ELab Fellows had a dedicated area to test their products and services with all who attended the conference. ELab also partnered with Parsons Festival, an annual series of art and design events in which cutting-edge student work is presented to the Parsons community and the public. This year’s festival included the Impact! design exhibition, which featured collaborative research and design projects from Parsons School of Design that address issues of major social concern and offer solutions through unexpected design approaches. ELab fellows showcased their ideas in an installation for a general public audience that exceeded 60,000 people over 3 weeks. Some other initiatives we’ve been investing in as a way to support ELab are: •

Demo table at 2 Career Events to encourage students to apply for ELab and become an entrepreneur

•

Demo table at 2 Alumni Days to engage long term alumni in volunteering and giving back

•

Meeting with Provost Office to discuss synergies and potential partnerships

•

Collaboration with New Challenge Team to offer workshops for both our and their fellows.

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04// ACT For current students we offer the INNOVATE NYC Program which gives current students across the New School the opportunity to work with students from across NYC academic communities on a social entrepreneurship challenge.

“

“Working on a real-life pressing issue with 19 other students from 10 different universities is an opportunity you don’t get every day. It was an amazing learning experience and I am so thankful to have been a part of it.” ~ Vanya Mittal, Fellow Innovate NYC & Graduate Student Parsons School of Design

Carina Nieves

Jason Gonzalez

Vanya Mittal

Management and Urban Policy

Undergraduate Student

Graduate Student

Milano School of International

Parsons School of Design

Affairs.

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05// LAUNCH As another part of our strategy we assist recently minted alumni launch impact businesses through our distributed incubator programs. Another accomplishment this year was the relaunch of the 12 Month Fellowship Program and the launch of our Summer Seats Program, both aimed to embed fellows in greater NYC’s sectorspecific communities. Fellows gain membership and “hot seats” at the heart of our partners effervescent community and share their resources, both in terms of goods and service providers.

06// GIVE BACK The last stage of our strategy is to get the greater TNS community involved by inviting long term alumni to mentor our young entrepreneurs in the various area of business development be it from product development to strategy, branding and user experience. There are two programs offered one is one-on-one mentorship and the other is through “office hours” in a timebank where they are essentially on call for the fellows as needed.

Workshop with alumni Robyn Asquini

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PROGRAMS DELIVERED This year we successfully accomplished the delivery of all programs listed above.

INNOVATE NYC IN 2015-16 the ELab was a founding member of a consortium of ten New York City based universities (Columbia, Cooper Union, NYU, CUNY, Brooklyn Law, and more), the “Do School”, and “NYC EDC” (New York City Economic Development Corporation) and funded by Newman’s Own, to offer “Innovate NYC”, an immersive program of learning by doing in social entrepreneurship. This program is designed to be open to current students across the New School university to apply for 3 fellowship seats and spans 7 month including an intensive 1 mo summer capstone. This network brings current students from across the city’s universities together to collaborate using design thinking for social innovation. Rhea Alexander, Director of Elab is a founding member and on the advisory board along with academic leadership across the city such as: Martha Kanter, former under secretary of education for the Obama administration and now distinguished visiting professor at the Steinhardt school of NYU. The 2016 challenge partnered, NYCEDC offering a Shared Resource Challenge which focused on the affordability and accessibility of critical resources for NYC’s nonprofit & social enterprise community. The program was a success from all the stakeholders points of view and was sponsored again in 2017 by Newman’s Own.

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12-MONTH INCUBATOR The winners for ELab’s 12 Month Fellowship Program were chosen in our Pitch Night event, a night of courage, passion, and pride for the 13 teams that came out of Parsons/New School to create their businesses and trigger social change. With a wide spectrum of projects, the fellows were representing not only the Parsons School of Design Strategies 4 graduate programs but also Parsons Design and Technology Program and The School of Public Engagement at The New School. Each startup had to present in a 10-minute pitch format to a jury of 24 judges consisting of EIab’s external partners, investors, mentors, alumni and Parsons faculty.

“

“The ELab is a way that you can put yourself in the way of a lot of really innovative opportunities and things that are happening that are pretty exciting.” ~ Chelsea Simpson, Centre for Social Innovation

From 13 applicants, 11 were selected, with the following criteria: ELab’s quantitative rubric that the 24 judges filled out, the qualitative notes that the judges provided on each project and team, and finally the interest of the ELab’s partner spaces in the missions and work focus of the startups.

ELAB REPORT 2016 | PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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ELAB IS A DESIGN-LED BUSINESS LAB THAT IS DEDICATED TO THE RESEARCH AND PRACTICE OF DESIGN-LED IMPACT ENTREPRENEURSHIP

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Fellowship Offering and Curriculum: Part of what fellows receive in the Elab incubator program is a grant covering their hot seats at the sector specific incubators or co-working spaces filled with a rich network and existing programming to mine, discounts and free services such as Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cloud service for business (worth over 20K), Hire Luther discount for backend platform development, our mentorship programs as well as our own curriculum comprised of a series of workshops and talks that addressed their needs and foster the success of their startups: Workshop 4: Startup Law 101 With Aaron Wright from Cardozo Law Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Law Clinic held at our partner space LMHQ.

Workshop 5: Go Fund Yourself With alumni mentors Shawn Nelson, Founder/CEO of Lovesac; Nate Checketts, Founder/ CEO of Rhone; Josh Francia, Founder/CEO of CrowdWyse; Shaun Gordon, Chairman: Pristine Environments & former Hedge Fund Manager; and Barbara Raho: Co-Founder of Urban Outfitters, now Angel Investor at Golden Seeds, held at our partner space LMHQ.

Workshop 6: Prep your Pitch by past Alumni ELab Fellows ELab fellows Braden Crooks and April De Simone, co-founders of Designing The We, and Robyn Asquini, founder of ArtTapX, gave workshops for fellow applicants as part of our giving back to the 12 Month Fellowship Program on business tools that they may use to enhance their businesses and prepare for pitching and applying to the Lab held at our partner space CSI.

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Law 101 with Aaron Wright

Go Fund Yourself with Shawn Nelson

Pitch like a pro with with Richie Hecker, CEO of Traction and Scale

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Midway Presentations on April 15, 2016 An exciting night in which the 2016 Fellows shared their progress since they joined the ELab in front of an audience of judges, investors and our broader community. Each company had 5 minutes to present their idea by addressing the following: The problem, The solution provided, The business model, market positioning, the team, accomplishments in the past 6 months and goals for the next 6 months. The same rubric that was created for the pitch night was used as well as a survey administered to the audience to determine the impression of progress and overall interest the fellow’s pitch generated and a comparative chart was made and given to the startups as helpful data points to leverage in the continued iterative build of their businesses.

2 Design Jams This year we hosted two Design Jams where fellows were able to test their prototypes with various users, seek advice from mentors and extended community experts in programming, brand development and social media strategy. The first one, a Saturday long event on May 7th, was part of Parsons Festival 2016, an annual series of art and design events in which cutting-edge student work is presented to the Parsons community and the public. The second, hosted on August 13th, offered an information session led by DRF (Dorm Room Fund) and a workshop on social media strategies in addition to the testing sessions.

“I really think this [ELab] is a great solution to a lot of hungers within the University at different levels. It’s a great add-on for alumni of the University, and these are the type of offerings everyone keeps clamoring for [at Parsons].” ~ Eddie Shiomi, ELab Mentor and Director of Educational Innovation, The New School

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Midway Presentation

Design Jam

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Demo Day on October 14, 2016 As we marked our calendars for the end of ELabâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 12 Month Fellowship Program, it was time to get our fellows up on stage again to pitch their businesses and compare their progress according to milestones set in Midway Presentations. Again, the same rubric that was created for the pitch night and midway were used as well as a survey administered to the audience to determine the impression of progress and overall interest the fellowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pitch generated and a comparative chart was made and given to the startups as helpful data points to leverage in the continued iterative build of their businesses.

Example of the rubric and data collected and shared with our fellows

Ranking

Scores Overview

Ranking Rank Startup

Dartboard

Startup

Score

Dartboard

8.16

Team Culture

SMS Care

7.92

Team Skills

Positioning Positioning

Scores Overview

Rank

Score 8.16/10 1/11 Score 8.16/10 Rank Rank 1/11

Score

Dartboard SMS Care

8.16 7.92

Highest

6.59

8.38

6.06

8.64

7.62

7.624.91

Culture Team Skills

Lowest

8.12 8.64

Company Company Viability

8.12

8.64

6.59

Highest

8.38

6.06

8.64

7.62

4.91

7.62

Designity

7.70

Blink Blink Blink Blink

7.467.46

Progress

8.28

8.28 4.69

4.69 8.28

8.28

ArtTap ArtTap

7.447.44

Total Score

8.16

8.165.60

8.16 5.60

8.16

6 6

Freelance St.

7.05

Wayscape

6.65

Senses & Co.

Matter Mind Studio

9 10

Nanoom Studio

Designity

Freelance St. Wayscape Senses & Co. Matter Mind

10 11

Nanoom InSite

InSite

7.70

Dartboard Team

Viability

7.05 6.65

6.51

6.47

5.716.47 5.6 5.71

5.6

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MENTORSHIP Mentorship programs are an important part of ELab. These programs are targeted toward professionally established alumni and professional experts willing to give back to Parsons and to nurture the next generation of design entrepreneurs, as well as those who may see personal benefit and professional gratification in working with young startups. Currently there are two ways of supporting ELab fellows:

1:1 Mentorship The first program is the one-on-one twelve-month mentorship in which fellows are paired with a startup through regularly meetings over the course of the year with a focus on helping fellows reach their KPIs and benchmarks. The fellows and mentors were pairs in a speed dating format even early on in the program.

Speed Dating Night Between Fellows and Mentors A lively and quick event that was modeled off of speed dating where Mentors went around the room meeting the fellow teams then each wrote their preference on notes which we later we assessed and paired. Interestingly, most all picked each other reciprocally.

Timebank Mentorship The second is the time-bank “office hours” to which experts can donate an hour’s for one-on-one meetings, as needed, with fellows at any stage along their development based on the expertise of the mentor.

“

“The highlight of the E-Lab incubator has been connecting with an experienced mentor. We’ve had a lot of difficult strategic decisions from partnerships to fundraising and it has been invaluable to have a sounding board to test our thinking.” ~ Thomas Disley, ELab Fellow and founder of SMS Care

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SUMMER SEATS The summer seats program was piloted with NY Designs. Offering mentorship and space to early early startups to allow them time to prepare pitches to the Elab 12mo incubator program as well as other programs and funding opportunities around the city. In the early part of summer of 2015, we put out a call and selected 1 startup for this opportunity, ArtapX, who eventually made it into the 12 mo incubator.

“

“This extra time and mentorship from Quilian Riano, director of NY Design and Rhea Alexander, Director of the Elab, allowed me to pull my pitch and together for the Elab 12 mo incubator pitch night and to improve my offering ideas, start working on the backend of my platform and investigate incorporation options.” ~ Robin Asquini, ELab Fellow and founder of ArtTapX

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RESEARCH CONDUCTED The goal of the Entrepreneurs Lab as a research project is to develop new methods of evaluating entrepreneurial success in impact entrepreneurship and the efficacy of the distributed model of an academic incubator. As a longitudinal study, the director, Rhea Alexander and her colleagues and student research fellows aim to share knowledge and find out if the impact of participating in an extracurricular immersive, program may have on both fellows and startups in regard to traditional measurements such as job creation and economic impact but also to attempt to measure long term qualitative effects participating in a distributed incubator and building a startup regardless of its success or failure has on their career trajectories navigating a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous).

ELab team and volunteers

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METHODOLOGY With generous grants from the New School and Dan and Gloria Bohan Foundation, Rhea Alexander and the ELab has been able to start to collect data through surveys, interviews and rubrics for research and iteration as this itself is an experiment and pilot of a new decentralized model of an academic incubator. In our research we are creating feedback loops, benchmarks assessments, and KPI assessments to see if learning certain behaviors and iterative methods coupled with pragmatic skills can be used to condition people’s reactions and nudge them towards better, more desirable strategies and actions. As people receive realtime contextual information about their approach, they can calibrate their behavior and make a choice about their next course(s) of action. These feedback loops begin with data capture when a certain action or behavior is recorded. This is followed by contextual data sharing –during which processed data is delivered to the user in a way that triggers a need for action. These data can be accompanied by suggestions of various potential actions to take. The final step is action –the subject has processed the data, assessed its relevance, and– and then makes a choice informed by the options presented. Such action is once again captured, to trigger another feedback loop. ELab practices the methods it teaches –using feedback loops improve the value it brings and share findings with the community and its stakeholders. Ultimately, ELab aims to apply this design research throughout the program timeframe, and for at least five years out, using tools to track qualitative and quantitative data, and focusing on data visualization and other effective forms of communication, of its findings, to stakeholders.

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PUBLICATIONS AND CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ELAB presented at 2 conferences in 2016 Its first academic paper published in Cuaderno 64 journal and presented at VII Congreso Latinoamericano de Enseñanza del Diseño (Conference), in Buenos Aires, Argentina July 25, 2016.

http://www.palermo.edu/dyc/congreso-latino/invitado_honor2016.html http://fido.palermo.edu/servicios_dyc/publicacionesdc/vista/detalle_ publicacion.php?id_libro=627 With the title “Design-entrepreneurship in the post-recession economy: Parsons’ ELab, a Design School Incubator”, the paper was written by Rhea Alexander, Director and founder of the Parsons ELab and Assistant Professor of Strategic Design and Management, Aaron Fry, Associate Professor of Design Strategies and Samar Ladhib, Research Assistant.

ELab presented at the 21st Century Academic Forum Conference held on September 27-29, 2016 at Harvard, and the paper will be published in the journal 21st Century Academic Forum. http://www.21caf.org/5th-conference-at-harvard.html With the title “Practicing What We Teach: Iterative Design Methods for Innovation Education”, the paper was written by Rhea Alexander, Founder and Director of Parsons Elab and Assistant Professor of Strategic Design and Management along with Aaron Fry, Associate Professor of Design Strategies. The paper will be in circulation in mid-2017.

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DATA COLLECTION AND REPORTS In 2016, we were able to develop and conduct different types of surveys for the various stakeholders. Our main goal with surveys is to evaluate the efficacy of the program, by understanding if fellows have learnt and grown, and if our relationship with partners through this distributed model has long term sustained value to its stakeholders.

ELab Information Session The event aims to introduce SDS and DT graduate students, recent alumni, potential mentors and faculty to the new ELab offerings. Partners of the ELab speak about their offerings and former fellows share their experiences.

46%

51%

75%

Attendees who

found

would apply to an

would recommend

the event very

Elab Fellowship

the Elab to other

useful.

students.

ELab Midway Presentation ELab startups share their progress in front of an audience of judges, investors and ELab community 6 months after they started the Fellowship Program.

33%

23%

33% of attendees

22.22% found the overall

found the event

startupsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; progress in the last

very useful

6 months considerable

69%

69% think that Elabâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work to promote entrepreneurship within the The New School community is great

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How likely are you to apply to an ELab Fellowship?

31.3%

25%

18.8%

25%

Very Likely Likely Somewhat Likely No Way

How likely are you to recommend the Elab to other students?

20.3%

58%

Very Likely Likely Somewhat Likely

21.7%

Pitch Night Each year we announce a call for applicants and narrow down to finalists for our pitch night where the audience helps decide who will win seats in the fellowship.

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Bootcamp Workshops How did you find this presentation? Please rate your experience.

Startup Accounting and Tax Compliance by Philip Ambrosino:

Go Fund Yourself by Shawn Nelson:

78%

22%

Very Useful

Useful

Startup Law 101 by Aaron Wright:

Very Useful

50%

Very Useful

Useful

50%

Useful

Talking About Culture by Guilherme Curi

25%

Useful

Very Useful

60%

Raising Funds with ELab Fellow Braden Crooks

75%

Very Useful

25%

Very Useful

Business Plan with ELab Fellow Robyn Asquini

71%

40%

29% Useful

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71%

Useful

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Qualitative Assessment with Fellows Longitudinal study: Over the Next 5 Years we hope to capture thru research metrics and video documentation: Researching the efficacy of the distributed model for academic incubators We created an action plan •

Measure startup teams in terms of skills, access, knowledge, overall capacity (perspective & network analysis) at the beginning, then middle and end of their fellowship, then follow them 5 years out

•

Measure strength of ELab support structure and resources (network analysis)

•

Measure business model strength and potential for scale (predictive analysis)

•

Merge business models to identify potential for systemic impact (perspective analysis)

Measuring the impact Design Led Initiatives Have on the Economy over the Next 5 years •

Impact on the Local Economy

•

Impact on Job Creation

•

impact on our partners

•

Impact on the Startups

Measuring the impact of Parsons Elab within its Ecosystem Human/financial/social impact •

Impact on the Startups

•

Impact on Parsons

•

Impact on the School Environment

•

impact on our partners

“

“ELab has helped me narrow my focus and given me the tools to execute this platform in a much more effective way.” ~ Robyn Asquini, ELab Fellow and founder of ArtTapX

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WHO IS THE ELAB Elab is comprised of faculty, volunteer longterm alumni, experts in our extended community and partners complimented by student administrators and researchers, our fellows and alumni fellows.

MENTORS The ELab Mentorship Program started with 3 mentors in 2015 and has expanded to 16 mentors within our network:

Aaron Wright

Chelsea Briganti

12 Month Program Mentor

------------------------

Technology & law, early

Entrepreneur, founder of

stage startups, financing,

LOLIWARE

legal, UI/UX and business

legal, ui/ux and business

development

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David Carroll

David Postolski

David Stewart

Time Bank

12 Month Program Mentor

------------------------

Media and technology,

Patents, trademarks,

Finance, fundraising (equity

entrepreneur, social

and debt), investing

engagement, interaction

startups, emerging

design

companies, crowdfunding, entrepreneurs

Eddie Shiomi

Elizabeth Enck

Esther Ahn

12 Month Program Mentor

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Educational leadership,

Service design, design

Entrepreneur, expertise

innovation

research & strategy, brand

with startups

strategy, organizational design

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Ian Spangler

Ihab Daouk

Johann Verheem

12 Month Program Mentor

Time Bank

12 Month Program Mentor

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Entrepreneur with funding,

Engineering, Finance

Entrepreneurship,

website traffic & product

Investment Banking

product design, Direct

management

Mechanical Engineering and

Response Television,

Design, and Strategy

startups, business model development

Julia Doran

Patrick Van Hoof

Robert Wick

12 Month Program Mentor

Time Bank

12 Month Program Mentor

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Production manager at

Design thinking, entrepreneur,

Pres. at RWPR, Inc.

Thomson Reuters

innovation, venture capital, corporate strategies, media entertainment and technology.

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Roxanna Zarnegar

Sandra Hoefler

Scott Pobiner

12 Month Program Mentor

Time Bank

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Art entrepreneur

Performance Marketing

Interactive technologies,

Manager at MyBuilder

innovation, design research and management, information visualization

Shawn Nelson

Tom Cusack

Vida Mulec

12 Month Program Mentor

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Entrepreneur, founder of

Lawyer with startups

Founder V&H Social Impact,

Lovesac

an international innovation social impact strategy company.

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PARTNERS Part of our core values is to provide an optimal journey for our students. We created strong partnerships within the New School and with external partners in order to design a system that would benefit the whole ecosystem.

Alumni Office

Provost’s Office

Development Office

Mentors

University Alumni Grantees

Legal office

New Challenge

ELAB Career Services Faculty Professional Networks

Communities

Strategic Partners Spaces

Academia

Applied Practice

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Our 2016 partners include sector specific co-working spaces (Centre for Social Innovation, Civic Hall, LMHQ and NY Designs Incubator), and Dorm Room Fund, Hire Luther, Cardozo Law Clinic, Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy and Google Cloud Platform.

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ADVISORS

Alison Mears

Eduardo Staszowski

John Bruce

-----------------------

------------------------

-Director of the BFA

Director of the Parsons

Partner and senior strategist at

Architecture and Interior

DESIS (Design for

Forward Mapworks, a founding

Design programs in the

Social Innovation and

partner of super-interesting! â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a

School of Constructed

Sustainability) Research Lab

Brooklyn-based firm dedicated

Environments

to design for sustainable communities

Patrick Van Hoof

Sara Arnell

------------------------

Director of Product Strategy at

Former CEO of Arnell Group

Huge, and an Adjunct Professor

CEO of Karmic

of Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking at Parsons in New York

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WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED GRANTS + DEVELOPMENT KAUFFMAN GRANT In Fall of 2016, in partnership with The New Challenge Director’s, Parsons ELab’s director Rhea Alexander, earned a Kauffman Foundation Inclusion Challenge grant for $420,000.00 over two years to support a new Impact Entrepreneurship Initiative at The New School for women and people of color to launch while they learn. This took over 7 months to develop and there were several rounds of assessment.

DAN AND GLORIA BOHAN FOUNDATION For 3 years in a row Alexander and the Elab have been generously supported by the Dan and Gloria Bohan Foundation.

SCHOOL OF SDS SCHOOL BASED FUNDS, STUDENT ASSISTANT RESEARCH FUNDS AND FACULTY RESEARCH FUNDS For the last three years, Alexander has applied and been rewarded with various School funds to continue her research and community support of impact entrepreneurship.

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OUTREACH AND COMMUNITY EVENTS GENERAL ASSEMBLY PANEL In August 2016, General Assembly had partnered with NYDesigns to introduce the New York entrepreneurial design community, uncovering key events, companies, people, current issues, and career paths in the industry. ELab’s Director, Alexander sat on a panel with Bhold and MTWTF, about “How design can be more human-centered, civically engaged and entrepreneurial”. https://generalassemb.ly/education/intro-to-the-nyc-design-community

PARSONS REUNION Twice this year we were invited to participate in the Parsons Reunion with the support from the Alumni Office to market the mentorship opportunity. Throughout the event we recruited longterm alumni with over 10yrs experience and expertise to mentor and our current fellows use the opportunity to market and test their products.

“

“I think its very important to connect the next leaders in design, business and innovation with alumni and with resources.” ~ Maggie Cavaliere, Secretary of the University Student Senate

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2016 (12 MONTH INCUBATOR) STARTUPS ACHIEVEMENTS Out of the initial batch of fellows from the first 2014-15 cohort only 2 remain in business the other 4 dissolved because of good job offers. We believe that the characteristics that make up an entrepreneur make very good “intra-preneurs” and therefore are very hireable in today’s rapidly changing marketplace. Our 2015-16 has grown to 11 startups and the below chart shows their successes to date:

ELab 2016 Cohort with ELab Team

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STARTUP: BLINK BLINK //Nicole Messier and Alex Tosti

A product based tech startup that develops STEM educational hobby kits for

young girls

including creative circuit kits that teach the same logic, problem solving, and critical thinking skills that are necessary for STEM careers. It allows users to make the kinds of projects they want to be making plus technology.

AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS Blink Blink recently won the Next Top Makers from NYC EDC, a program of New York City Economic Development Corporation, the City’s primary engine for economic development, charged with leveraging the City’s assets to drive growth, create jobs, and improve quality of life.

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STARTUP: NANOOM //Shiwon Jang

Nanoom is a product based tech startup that developed a playful adaptable system that is made with the modern family in mind and utilizes smartphones as an engine for a toy families build together. It is designed to foster the development of cognitive, social, emotional and fine motor skills for toddlers. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve learned that product based businesses impose some significant challenges before launching it: it needs a lot of initial capital and prototyping. Also, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve learned that products for children have stringent safety codes.

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STARTUP: DARTBOARD //Gabor Tankovics, Namreta Kumar, and Yuchen Zhang

Dartboard reimagines relationship with personal finances by automating the most complicated and stressful tasks, namely paying off student loans. Dedicated to creating financial tools that simplify your life, Dartboardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission is to help young adults turn debt repayment into their best investment.

AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS Dartboard was awarded by the NYC Media Lab two times: 1. They were selected to participate in NYC Media Labâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Combine Program, focused on the commercialization of emerging media technologies from faculty and students within NYC universities. That means receiving $25,000 x2 as an initial grant support and mentorship from industry leaders. 2. Dartboard was also selected to be part of the International Innovators Initiative (IN2NYC), the first municipal program in the nation designed to help international entrepreneurs access visas so they can create jobs in the United States.

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STARTUP: DESIGNITY //Shahrouz Varshabi and Sheida Varshabi

Designity is an exclusive online platform for design students and alumni with .edu email addresses, to establish a meaningful collaboration between the academic and professional world. It enables anyone within our community to post an opportunity, and it increases alumni engagement, encouraging them to hire students from within their own network. To help them acquire the network and skill necessary to complete after graduation.

AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS â&#x20AC;˘

Has built a user based with more than 1,650 people - up 60% are designers and 40% are employers.

â&#x20AC;˘

By the end of the Fellowship Program Deisgnity had 9 projects completed, 7 employees and an income of $15,300.

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STARTUP: FREELANCER STREET //Cecilia STeel and Jalen Vasquez

An online platform enable freelancers to expand their client base and regular income by connecting them directly with potential clients, based on location, skillset, rates and reviews. It focuses on communication which results in better work and higher client satisfaction.

AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS By October 2016 the platform had completed 12 projects.

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STARTUP: IN•SITE //Nada Elokdah, Larissa Begault, Julia Borowicz, Rania Dalloul, Nora Elmarzouky, and SaraMinard

In•site is a multidisciplinary design collaborative consultancy tackling issues around unequal urban development, through research, design strategies and diverse partnerships, maneuvering between the policy realm and local stakeholders.

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STARTUP: SMS CARE //Thomas Disley

SMS Care supports the parents of children with preventable disease in the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poorest regions. SMS Care combines data science with a participatory design process to create disease awareness campaigns that engage hard-to-reach communities. Once parents are engaged we work with them to deliver conditional cash transfers, encouragement and peer-led support to help more children complete their care cycle.

AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS SMS Care won $20,000 from D-Prize to launch a pilot in Niger (Africa). D-Prize is a call to the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s boldest entrepreneurs to design a new social enterprise and solve one of the distribution challenges. The D-Prize will also help find future funding and grow the company as the pilot was proven successful.

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STARTUP: MATTER-MIND //Colleen Doyle, Lilian Tong, and Doremy Diatta

A consultancy that does Emotion-Centered Design as a way to help organizations, institutions, and organizations to turn their blind spot into a hidden gem.

AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS Projects accomplished include helping a New York City-based child mental health institution to supplement the existing program by designing a set of tools to help parents to remember to practice their skills more often at home. To see their latest projects please go to their site: http://www.mattermindstudio.com/

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STARTUP: ART TAP //Robyn Asquini

A curated professional fine art omni-channel retail experience. Our aim is to create an engaging, seamless, and affordable experience that empowers artists and allows greater access to quality artwork.

AWARDS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS ArtTapX was one of our successful business out of the Summer Seats Accelerator that was also selected for ELab’s 12 Month Incubator Fellowship Program. While an ELab Fellow, Robyn won the Alley Boost “Startup Investor Night To Watch” pitch competition which is a closer step for the company towards receiving investment. Robyn also won the Publicis90 Award (50K), a global initiative from Publicis Groupe to celebrate the agency’s 90th anniversary. ArtTapX was one of the 90 startups selected to received funding and mentorship.

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STARTUP: SENSES & CO //Catherine Choronzey

Senses & Co is a subscription-based service that provides its members a unique way of exploring their intimacy and their sensuality. It aims to enhance experience of purchasing ertotic products and fill the gaps created by the existing market.

“

“The ELab will give me not only a space in the city but also the opportunity to develop my business in the US.” ~ Catherine Choronzey, ELab Fellow and founder of Senses&Co

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STARTUP: WAYSCAPE //Alan Holt, Dylan Shad, Nicole Selken, Patrick xMooney, and William Ray

Wayscape is a narrative platform for web and mobile that aims to revolutionize participatory storytelling. It invites users to participate in a shared story world that is expressed through short fiction, webcomics, and an ongoing alternate reality game. For fantasy readers, creatives, and players of roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons.

“

“Having a schedule and support network through ELab has helped us check our goals and make sure we are making adequate progress towards them.” ~ Patrick Mooney, ELab Fellow and founder of Wayscape

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2017 FELLOWS In the fall of 2016, we launched the call, hosted the pitch night and selected 5 startups teams out of 25 applications. This year’s fellowship started in January 2017, The criteria for selecting winners was similar to last year’s with an iteration in that we were able to include the votes of the audience in addition to the judges and partner spaces representatives.

STARTUP: CIVIC FLEET //Ashley Starks Amin

Civic Fleet’s purpose is to make government services easier to navigate, universally accessible and effectively delivered. Civic Fleet provides a set of tools to help people navigate the social security and medicare/aid system.

STARTUP: KOSI //Nicholas Morozowich

Kosi is a service supported by a digital platform that simplifies patient access to medical marijuana and builds personalized and meaningful connections between patients and caregivers.

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STARTUP: THREADCYCLE //Angela Bronza and Chloe Guss

Threadcycleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission is to collect and recycle textile waste from garment manufacturers in order to reduce landfill use and energy waste and to preserve valuable raw materials. Threadcycleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s long-term goal is to develop a system for recycling large quantities of textile waste. Their offer in stage one is conprised by DIY Craft Kits & Workshops.

STARTUP: WALKNTALK //Limassol Zok

Walkntalk is a mobile app that enables users to plan walking meetings based on the features that address aspects of scheduling, inviting people, and customizing the route based on the type of the meeting, the destination, and desired actions to be taken along the way.

STARTUP: ZER //Katherine Wallace and Danny Dang

Zer is an augmented reality publication that aims to engage Generation Z with substantial news. They are creating bite-sized experiences that allow users to get a deeper look at important topics such as gender issues, climate change and global affairs. Their goal is to become the go-to destination for the younger generation to access news on augmented reality technology.

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GOALS FOR 2017 Based on data collected from last year’s various programs and the new needs of the rapidly changing innovation economy, this year we aim to pair down our offering to our most successful including the time bank mentorship, 12 mo incubator program and INNOVATE NYC. Within each, we are building upon the most successful parts of the programs initiated in 2016 to stay nimble and iterate as we go. We plan to continue our research and support the interests of our fellows and our community as they respond to the world around us.

“

“This collaborative interdisciplinary space is where amazing things are going to happen. This kind of support network, this kind of entrepreneurial endeavor, bringing people together, providing mentors, providing advisors, providing an actual creative community where everybody can really share capacities is incredible.” ~ Jane Pirone, Dean of School of Design Strategies

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CONCLUSION On a macro level, 2016 had seen tremendous uncertainty, volatility and change politically, economically, socially and technologically. Due to rapid innovation, there has been exponential disruption and change in business models and the marketplace. We have realized that we can no longer comport ourselves with the business as usual mentality from the past century. The wicked, complex and systemic problems we face globally today will require brave new risky innovative responses. Supporting the next generation of changemakers has never been more important and more inspiring.

DEDICATION The ELab community holds tremendous gratitude to our current funders the Gloria and Bohan Foundation and The School of Design Strategies at The New School, who have been the backbone support in making our partnerships flourish and the incubation programs develop. We have achieved so much this past year due to the generosity and encouragement of the foundation and its founder Gloria Bohan, which has so far enabled 21 new startups to emerge from Parsons, get incubated within the ever growing NYC community, and potentially impact our community long term in numerous positive ways.

//YOUR SUPPORT IS INVALUABLE//

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