Malayan tigers paw at a device that plays music and contains lights at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. The zoo funded and partnered with UC Forward on a project which pulled 30 students from 10 disciplines together with 10 zoo staff mentors to design, fabricate, and test nine prototype animal enrichment devices for tigers, penguins, giraffes and large birds.
UC Forward and Co-Labs connects industry partners with diverse groups of student talent through semester-long (15-17 weeks) project collaborations. Our team will work with you to outline project goals and deliverables that empower student teams to leverage design thinking and cross-disciplinary collaboration to explore new ideas and uncover innovation opportunities.
- Connect with students across multiple majors through a semester-long, faculty-led course
- Propose your organization’s real-world problem for student teams to work collaboratively to solve through the practice of design thinking
- Industry partners participate approx. 1-3 hours per week (or more as desired)
- Students work approximately 25 hours per week on each project (375-425 hours total over 15-17 weeks)
- Courses are financially sponsored by our industry partners
Project Examples
A few examples of UC Forward projects UC students have worked on.
Kroger Corporation’s Zero Hunger/Zero Waste
- In this course, students worked in interdisciplinary teams, innovating around transforming campus food waste practices and barriers to food access for UC students.
- View a report of the student teams’ research process and proposed solutions
Cincinnati Zoo Puzzles for Animals
- 30 students from 10 disciplines worked with 10 zoo staff mentors to design, fabricate, and test nine prototype animal enrichment devices for tigers, penguins, giraffes and large birds.
- View a report of the students’ design process and outcomes
A New Green Uptown
- A collaboration between the departments of English, Environmental Studies and Geography, the program consists of interdisciplinary classes designed to make students more aware of UC’s relationship to the surrounding community.
- Read, “Students evaluate UC’s environmental impact through experiential learning.”
BHDP Architecture and the Future of Work
- Students addressed the changing social and professional needs of the modern workplace in the context of an ongoing revolution in technology which demands supportive settings for innovative knowledge-generating workers.
- Read “The Workplace of the Future: Students learn to be comfortable with ambiguity,” co-authored by Dominic Iacobucci of BHDP Architecture and Aaron Bradley of the University of Cincinnati for BizEd magazine.
Ready to Connect?
Work with us to kick start your next project. We are now accepting requests for future UC Forward Projects.
Ideal project proposals will challenge students to:
- Generate new knowledge (research / insight development);
- Identify new business / product / service opportunities and evolutions;
- Explore new visual or spatial concepts; and/or
- Make speculative predictions about future scenarios
Questions? Fill out the contact form below and a member of the Partnership Development Team will contact you.
