Three Teams Receive $36,000 to Pilot Solutions to Tackle Healthcare and Social Problems Related to Covid-19

1. Thursday, 23 July 2020 -The circuit breaker period posed great challenges to Singaporeans as COVID-19 amplified stressors to the physical, social and mental well-being of many, with physical distancing measures and social isolation adding to health and economic uncertainty. For a group of social-minded innovators, it presented an opportunity to come together in virtual space to design solutions for at-risk groups struggling through the pandemic. With the funding, mentorship by industry professionals and connection to the networks and resources within the community, the solutions proposed by the top three winning teams will be piloted in the Jurong Lake District, and replicated and scaled across the country, if successful.

2. Design4Impact is an open innovation platform that brings together passionate stakeholders to co-create and test sustainable and community-owned solutions for health and social needs amplified by COVID-19. The initiative emphasises the creation of simple and feasible solutions from the outset, such that they can be realistically adapted, implemented and scaled. Design4Impact is jointly led by MOH Office for Healthcare Transformation (MOHT) and the National Council of Social Service (NCSS), supported by DesignSingapore Council (Dsg) and Institute of Systems Science at National University of Singapore (NUS-ISS).



Traversing health and social care 

3. MOHT and NCSS provided problem statements, insights, research, funding, networks and content experts from the health and social care sectors. Dsg and NUS-ISS developed a framework to build capabilities using Design Thinking for community service initiatives. The premise is to frame solutions starting from the needs of real users in everyday life, using a design-centric approach to implementation and involving community providers, service users, health and social care professionals and caregivers at every stage.

4. Said Mr Mark Wee, Executive Director, Dsg: "We are pleased to support the Design4Impact initiative where people from diverse walks of life have the opportunity to come together to tackle real world challenges from a Design Thinking perspective. Design Thinking is uniquely suited to finding innovative solutions to demanding problems, and we hope that through their participation in Design4Impact, entrants come to appreciate the impact and value of design, and the importance of having a design mindset."

5. Life insurer Prudential Singapore contributed implementation funding of $30,000 ($10,000 per winning team). Coupled with MOHT’s micro-seed funding of $2,000 per team, each winning team had a total funding of $12,000 to bring their solution to fruition.

6. Mr Dennis Tan, CEO, Prudential Singapore, said: “The pandemic has not only affected the physical health of the community, it is also having an impact on the mental, social and emotional well-being of Singaporeans, especially the vulnerable seniors. Recognising this, Design4Impact has brought together various stakeholders in the public and private sectors to tackle the issues of social isolation and healthcare access in a post-COVID-19 world. We are pleased to support Design4Impact in building a more inclusive and caring society.”

Human-centred research – online, and from a safe distance 

7. An open call for participation from 27 May to 10 June 2020 was met with enthusiastic response and oversubscribed with more than 300 participants. After taking into consideration the diversity and range of participants’ interest, experience and representation within the community, over 180 participants from 31 teams comprising community providers, social care workers, grassroots organisations, healthcare professionals, students, academia, policy makers, private sector professionals, service users and volunteers embarked on the design challenge. With the knowledge gained from four weeks of workshops and real-world prototyping, participants ideated and co-created solutions to three challenge statements, and to re-imagine a post-COVID-19 future. Every team was guided by a facilitator who is skilled in Design Thinking and a buddy from the healthcare or social service sector to ensure that solutions are appropriately and relevantly scoped, in line with the needs of service users.

8. Said Ms Tan Li San, CEO, NCSS: “We are encouraged that Design4Impact has received such enthusiastic responses from participants across the public, people and private sectors. The solutions that we saw from the teams demonstrated empathy for the needs of specific groups, and creativity in approach to solving problems. We hope to catalyse the formation of a vibrant community where like-minded innovators come together, offer peer support, and get connected to resources and networks to bring their ideas to fruition.”

9. Researching deeply complex human issues from a safe distance presented its challenges. But physical barriers did little to hinder the teams as plenaries, breakouts and discussions were conducted using Zoom conference. Teams built user journeys, personas and prototypes on Miro, an online collaborative whiteboarding platform. Some teams enlisted the help of caregivers to take videos to illustrate a day in the life of a senior citizen.

Feasible and implementable Solutions

10. The top three winning solutions of Design4Impact are:

    i. Team Lit, a group of NUS and Yale University students who re-created the social media experience for seniors with chronic conditions in the physical space of the    void deck and home, through their community-driven programme Blockbox;

    ii. St Luke’s Eldercare, who created a Post Discharge Buddy System and Buddy    Aide app that matches volunteers to seniors who live alone, to enhance the   transitional care experience of seniors; and

   iii. Team Z1-5, a multidisciplinary team, who mooted the idea of a Block vs Block Bingo challenge which uses gamification to nudge healthy living habits while promoting family bonds and neighbourliness despite physical distancing

11. Said Ms Jaymee Justiniano, an NUS student, from Team Lit: “We want to fill gaps experienced by vulnerable groups from the pandemic. Specifically for the digitally-estranged seniors, we wanted to bring to them the social media experience that we youths enjoy and rely on. But in this initiative, we tailor-make an offline social media experience, that’s still effective for seniors to manage their health and harness the self-sustaining power of community.”

12. Other solutions selected for the Design4Impact Pitch Day include an app to connect isolated seniors with opportunities for social activities, a device embedded in the senior's pillow that can activate family, neighbours and providers when he or she is in distress, and a mentorship and learning platform to enhance the employability of fresh graduates looking for a job during COVID-19.

13. Said Mr Khoong Chan Meng, CEO, NUS-ISS, "Through our Smart Health Leadership Centre, I am pleased that the designathon participants had a comprehensive virtual learning journey and were empowered to ideate many creative solutions, which I had the honour of jointly presiding over. I am confident that the Design4Impact initiative will have a sustainable and far-reaching influence in enhancing health and social solutions for the community."

14. Ms Ng Ling Ling, Senior Consultant, MOHT, who was one of the judges on Design4Impact Pitch Day, said, "Very often, with designathons, after the winners have been selected, the real challenge lies in getting these projects implemented, improved and scaled. I'm happy to note that Design4Impact has produced a pipeline of well-advised, designed and ground-up community-based solutions that will be supported for implementation first in Jurong, and then replicated and scaled to more regions if successful."

A vibrant marketplace for innovation and community building 

15. A new Design4Impact Innovators's Ecosystem will be established to provide a platform for collaboration. It will also serve as a Community of Practice, where alumni and those who have a keen interest in innovation will meet regularly to trade good ideas and share resources. A Gallery Showcase will be convened tomorrow afternoon (24 July), where interested parties from the public, private and philanthropic sectors can take a virtual guided tour of the Design4Impact microsite (https://www.moht.com.sg/design4impact) and sign into Zoom sessions to listen in to teams' presentations. Through this platform, teams are connected with investors, mentors or incubators, who can give them a leg up in getting their ideas further implemented and scaled.