skip to Main Content

Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires

Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires

Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires

Living in California, one quickly becomes familiar with the images of roaring walls of fire that seem to overtake the news cycle every summer. The dangers of such events are obvious and have come to seem inevitable. But what if there were other ways of taking care of both the environment and our communities? What if there were ways to prevent the disaster, rather than react to it? This Spring, The Design Lab is partnering with The San Diego Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE Lab to help transition our approach to wildfires from reaction to prevention.

The collaboration, a pitch-style challenge titled “Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires,” will be spearheaded by Chief Data Science Officer of The Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE founder Ilkay Altintas and Design Lab Program Designer Kevin Popovic. Working together, both institutions have produced an interactive and engaging program that will help members of the general public understand the benefits and safety that come with prescribed burns, as well as the dangers of wildfire suppression and its creation of wildfire deficits. 

The “Mindshifts on Megafires” calls upon teams of innovative UCSD students eager to engage with real-world problems and solutions to come together and construct a convincing pitch, the best of which will be rewarded with a summer internship at The San Diego Supercomputer Center and the opportunity to bring their ideas to life. Students looking to participate can either sign up as a team or individually, those who register as individuals will subsequently be matched with a team. All teams will have access to subject matter experts and materials to aid them as they build their pitches. No prior experience is required, and students of all disciplines and majors are welcome to participate.

The official Design Challenge kickoff will take place this Thursday, April 7th, at 4:00 P.M in room 202 of the newly built Design and Innovation Building. To receive kickoff information, as well as specific details about the challenge, prospective participants are encouraged to register at the event page: https://designlab.ucsd.edu/designathon-mindshifts-on-megafires/

For a full list of Design-A-Thon related dates and events, see below.

Key Mindshift on Megafires dates and events:

  • April 7 @ 4 PM – Design Challenge unveiled at kickoff 
  • April 15 – Registration & design-thinking workshop, lightning talks, and mentor sessions 
  • April 16 @ 11:59 PM – Submissions due
  • April 20 @ 5 PM – Project showcase at Design@Large

Living in California, one quickly becomes familiar with the images of roaring walls of fire that seem to overtake the news cycle every summer. The dangers of such events are obvious and have come to seem inevitable. But what if there were other ways of taking care of both the environment and our communities? What if there were ways to prevent the disaster, rather than react to it? This Spring, The Design Lab is partnering with The San Diego Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE Lab to help transition our approach to wildfires from reaction to prevention.

The collaboration, a pitch-style challenge titled “Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires,” will be spearheaded by Chief Data Science Officer of The Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE founder Ilkay Altintas and Design Lab Program Designer Kevin Popovic. Working together, both institutions have produced an interactive and engaging program that will help members of the general public understand the benefits and safety that come with prescribed burns, as well as the dangers of wildfire suppression and its creation of wildfire deficits. 

The “Mindshifts on Megafires” calls upon teams of innovative UCSD students eager to engage with real-world problems and solutions to come together and construct a convincing pitch, the best of which will be rewarded with a summer internship at The San Diego Supercomputer Center and the opportunity to bring their ideas to life. Students looking to participate can either sign up as a team or individually, those who register as individuals will subsequently be matched with a team. All teams will have access to subject matter experts and materials to aid them as they build their pitches. No prior experience is required, and students of all disciplines and majors are welcome to participate.

The official Design Challenge kickoff will take place this Thursday, April 7th, at 4:00 P.M in room 202 of the newly built Design and Innovation Building. To receive kickoff information, as well as specific details about the challenge, prospective participants are encouraged to register at the event page: https://designlab.ucsd.edu/designathon-mindshifts-on-megafires/

For a full list of Design-A-Thon related dates and events, see below.

Key Mindshift on Megafires dates and events:

  • April 7 @ 4 PM – Design Challenge unveiled at kickoff 
  • April 15 – Registration & design-thinking workshop, lightning talks, and mentor sessions 
  • April 16 @ 11:59 PM – Submissions due
  • April 20 @ 5 PM – Project showcase at Design@Large

Living in California, one quickly becomes familiar with the images of roaring walls of fire that seem to overtake the news cycle every summer. The dangers of such events are obvious and have come to seem inevitable. But what if there were other ways of taking care of both the environment and our communities? What if there were ways to prevent the disaster, rather than react to it? This Spring, The Design Lab is partnering with The San Diego Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE Lab to help transition our approach to wildfires from reaction to prevention.

The collaboration, a pitch-style challenge titled “Design-A-Thon: Mindshifts on Megafires,” will be spearheaded by Chief Data Science Officer of The Supercomputer Center and WIFIRE founder Ilkay Altintas and Design Lab Program Designer Kevin Popovic. Working together, both institutions have produced an interactive and engaging program that will help members of the general public understand the benefits and safety that come with prescribed burns, as well as the dangers of wildfire suppression and its creation of wildfire deficits. 

The “Mindshifts on Megafires” calls upon teams of innovative UCSD students eager to engage with real-world problems and solutions to come together and construct a convincing pitch, the best of which will be rewarded with a summer internship at The San Diego Supercomputer Center and the opportunity to bring their ideas to life. Students looking to participate can either sign up as a team or individually, those who register as individuals will subsequently be matched with a team. All teams will have access to subject matter experts and materials to aid them as they build their pitches. No prior experience is required, and students of all disciplines and majors are welcome to participate.

The official Design Challenge kickoff will take place this Thursday, April 7th, at 4:00 P.M in room 202 of the newly built Design and Innovation Building. To receive kickoff information, as well as specific details about the challenge, prospective participants are encouraged to register at the event page: https://designlab.ucsd.edu/designathon-mindshifts-on-megafires/

For a full list of Design-A-Thon related dates and events, see below.

Key Mindshift on Megafires dates and events:

  • April 7 @ 4 PM – Design Challenge unveiled at kickoff 
  • April 15 – Registration & design-thinking workshop, lightning talks, and mentor sessions 
  • April 16 @ 11:59 PM – Submissions due
  • April 20 @ 5 PM – Project showcase at Design@Large

Read Next

UCSD Trolley Station

UCSD to create grand entrance to manage crushing growth, and welcome the public

"To see eyes looking at you matters. One pair of those eyes may give you a job offer, or help finance your startup, or help buy your first product off Kickstarter, or convince you what you’re doing isn’t solving real problems." — Scott Klemmer, Design Lab

In one of the biggest physical and social changes in school history, UC San Diego will create its first “front door,” a grand entrance meant to appeal as much to the public as students and ease crowding on a campus where enrollment could hit 40,000 this fall.
Plans are being drafted for a gateway that will blend art, culture, entertainment, dining, education and research — the same mix that helps funnel people from Westwood Village to UCLA.
UX Design Tips From Experience Designer Emilia Pucci

UX Design Tips from Experience Designer Emilia Pucci | Design Chats

Emilia Pucci, Design Lab Designer-in-Residence, shares some useful tips on User Experience Research and Prototyping.

Design Chats is a video series where we sit down with design practitioners to answer questions about how they utilize human-centered design.

View our Design Chats playlist on the Design Lab YouTube Channel

Interdisciplinary Powerhouse: Pinar Yoldas is a Perfect Fit for the Design Lab

Pinar Yoldas describes herself as an interdisciplinary designer, artist and researcher whose current research revolves around speculative biology, in which she designs and creates what could possibly be the next steps of evolution regarding human tissues, organs, and bodies. Evolution, in the eyes of Yoldas, includes the potential for humans in the future to possess modular bodies in which humans can interchange or add on additional sexual organs. 

She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego and a member of The Design Lab. While she earned her PhD in Visual and Media Design from Duke University, her interests and credentials don’t stop there. Yoldas also holds a MFA in Game and Interactive Media Design from UC Los Angeles; a MA in Visual Arts from Bilgi University; a MS in Information Technologies from Istanbul Technical University; and a Bachelors of Architecture with a minor is Sociology from Middle East Technical University. Combining her passions for science, art, and undoubtedly, education, Yoldas has impressively served as a bridge throughout her career between five different disciplines and serves as an inspiration for the pursuit and practical application of interdisciplinary science and art studies.
Idea Lab Design Lab

IDEA LAB Spring 2021

In collaboration with UC San Diego The Design Lab and The Basement, the Idea Lab is a quarter-long foundational program designed to introduce students to the ideas of design thinking and how it complements entrepreneurship through hands-on experiences and collaborative work with students from a variety of academic disciplines, backgrounds, and perspectives.  This program is ideal for both students who want to learn about design thinking and for students who need help getting “unstuck” from their current problem space.  Participants who successfully complete the program requirements of the Idea Lab may have the option to continue their journey with a focus on entrepreneurship in The Basement’s Summer Converge Program.

Application opens Monday, Feb. 1st at 12PM noon, closes Sunday, Feb. 21st @ 11:59pm
Trolley Stops Designathon UCSD Design Lab

Designathon Seeks to Reimagine Trolley Stops

On April 6+7, 2019, on UC San Diego campus Warren Mall, over 200+ students, neighbors, designers, technologists, and media-makers will come together for the Pepper Canyon Mobility Hub Designathon, an event developing proposals that will support the transformation Pepper Canyon Trolley Station at UCSD campus, currently under construction, into a dynamic, multimodal mobility hub. The event is produced through a partnership between The UC San Diego Design Lab, SANDAG, UC San Diego Campus Planning, the UC San Diego Young Planners’ Society, Sixth College Culture, Art, Technology program, and UC San Diego Urban Planning Program.
Mobile Health

Focus on mobile health: Scientists develop app to diagnose, treat leishmaniasis

Photo courtesy of Centro Internacional de Entrenamiento e Investigaciones Medicas

Cutaneous leishmaniasis - caused by bites from infected sandflies - produces skin lesions that leave behind both scars and stigma that last a lifetime. Up to 1.2 million new cases are diagnosed each year across the 90 countries where the disease exists, including Colombia.

“Leishmaniasis happens where the medical system isn't," says Dr. Eliah Aronoff-Spencer, a Fogarty mHealth grantee at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He's been working in rural Colombia to bridge the access gap between remote communities and the public health system, using a mobile tool that empowers community health workers to identify new cases of the disease and monitor treatment.
Back To Top