MIT J-WEL
Remote Design Sprints for Educators Worldwide
Discovered new themes around teachers' needs, prototyped user-created ideas to life, and pushed the limits of international remote collaboration.
The Challenge
When COVID hit, MIT's J-WEL team needed to transition their signature conference into a fully online experience — and they needed custom design sprints that could activate an international member base and produce prototypes of innovative solutions for global education.
The Approach
We built a remote sprint that felt as intentional as an in-person one: an on-boarding experience that surfaced user needs from the very first touchpoint, and a custom application process that screened participants into optimal teams.
The Process
Created a self-guided instructional portal so members could move at their own pace alongside live instruction.
Authored a product roadmap that aligned expectations across time zones.
Coached teams on building hands-on prototypes and mapping them back to user needs.
Recorded accompanying audio lectures and opened an online studio space for deeper, asynchronous learning.
The Outcome
J-WEL discovered key insights about their members that fed directly into future engagement strategy.
Participants left with implementation-ready prototypes, activated and proud of their new design-thinking skills — and asking how to roll the methods out organization-wide.
From the engagement
