As students at an engineering college with a passion for making a positive difference, our interests lie at the intersection of engineering design and social responsibility. We view engineering as the art of solving problems, and already a host of problems—from education to appropriate technology—are topics in which we can make change, even as college students. There currently exists a gap in the design services these organizations often require; it lies between what they can do themselves and what they would take to a professional, big name design firm. That’s where we come in. We are making a venture to bridge this gap. Currently and unofficially called IdeaTree Design, we are (but are not limited to) college engineering, business and liberal arts students whose experience with design could provide a valuable service to our customers. With a host of nearby colleges to draw members from (Olin College, Babson College, and Wellesley College), we will also empower our own designers with professional-level design experience. Our location in the suburbs of Boston already puts us close to a large number of potential customer organizations, and our contract with Olin College’s enterprise hatchery, called “The Foundry” provides us office space free of charge.

Drawn together by our common desire to empower others, we have come up with a plan for a socially conscious design firm where everybody wins. We envision non-profit organizations and socially conscious start-ups empowered by inexpensive engineering and design services, students empowered by access to positive design work experience within the venture, and us, the designers, empowered by a system of positive change. Our mission is to provide the design and engineering services necessary to empower those listed above.

First, our customers will be non-profit organizations and small socially conscious businesses and start-ups with a focus in an area such as international development or education. Although only a startup, IdeaTree has already started contacting organizations with which it might be able to do business. For instance, we’ve talked to a Chicago-based home for mentally and physically disabled about building a wheelchair coupler to help them save expenses, a Boston-based non-profit working in Haiti and Guatemala about designing a composting toilet, and a Texas-based non-profit about clean energy methods, among others. But this is just for starters— IdeaTree has hopes of becoming the go-to name when someone thinks “socially conscious design”.

Visit us at www.thinkideatree.com!