The Shumka Centre for Creative Entrepreneurship at Emily Carr University of Art + Design would like to invite applications from companies interested in participating in Design for Startups Program in Fall 2024. The program will begin September 19, 2024 and will run for 12 weeks.

Design for Startups is an initiative of Shumka Centre that brings the transformative power of design to SMEs by connecting them with designers to produce deliverables that will have impact on their businesses, products, services, and platforms. This program has been successfully implemented with 120+ companies to date.

Applications are open! To participate, please fill this short form by 5PM on July 24, 2024. Company interviews will begin August 7, 2024. 

Program Dates: September 19 – December 12, 2024
Expression of Interest form – Extended Deadline: 5 PM on July 28, 2024

How it works

• You tell us what problem you would like solved 
• We match you with a designer who has the skills in that area 
• Student designers join your company team and work closely with you and your stakeholders to find solutions 
• Student designers meet with other designers weekly in a lab setting, where they are supported by Emily Carr faculty to keep the projects on track  
• This is not an internship program: it is a design lab that happens in partnership with participating companies and Emily Carr 

The Design Problem

The key is identifying an open-ended design problem so that the designer can work with you and your team to find solutions. To develop a good design problem, begin with an objective rather than your idea for the solution. For example, rather than saying “We need a newsletter”, you should say “We are aiming to increase engagement or conversion rates”. Good solutions often take a different form than companies might have expected. 

Past examples of design outcomes include:  

• Improving the usability of an analytics dashboard to encourage customer engagement 
• Designing the user experience and navigation for inputting and modelling data in a business intelligence platform 
• Designing a touch screen interface for a hardware product 
• Leading a co-creative process of user research to transform a brand 
• Designing and testing an MVP for a mobile app or a new feature or user flow for an existing digital platform  

What skills do our designers have?

These designers are usually completing their 3rd or 4th year of undergraduate studies or first year of graduate studies, with expertise in interaction design, industrial design, and/or communication design, interface and usability, user testing, branding, user research and profiling, ideation and selection, and prototyping. This project is best suited to technology companies that have found product-market fit, particularly SaaS. 

Program Details

• 10 companies will be accepted to the Fall 2024 cohort 
• Cost for a company to participate is $2,520 (including GST), with NRC IRAP covering the balance of the total project cost 
• Each company will work with an NRC IRAP Industrial Technology Advisor, must be incorporated and must meet IRAP eligibility requirements 
• Each company will be matched with a designer 
• Interviewing, hiring and administration is taken care of by Emily Carr 
• Designers work onsite (or remotely) with your company for 12 hours a week for 12 weeks (September 19 – December 12, 2024) 
• Designers are supported by weekly 3-hour studio sessions with Emily Carr faculty to ensure successful deliverables 
• Companies are expected to provide the designer with access to relevant internal and external stakeholders, potentially including existing customers for purposes of user research and testing 

What we need from you 

• Designers must be invited to your weekly team meeting 
• Best results happen when you engage your designer in your company team as much as possible 
• We require that designers be given freedom to develop and test ideas within the area of focus that has been set out for the 12-week period 
• You need to be available: designers will need to connect with key stakeholders at various points during the project 

How to apply

To participate, please fill this Expression of Interest form by 5PM on July 28, 2024. Company interviews will begin August 7, 2024.

Please direct any questions to Dusanka Firaunovic at Dusanka.Firaunovic@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca and Anja Haman at Anja.Haman@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca (NRC IRAP ITAs)

This program is generously supported by the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) from Fall 2024 through Spring 2026.