Harsh Shah

Generational Equality Asia Pacific Design Challenge 2020 The challenge I was tackling was"How can we promote behavioural change to reduce Violence Against Women (VAW) by enlisting community leaders and influencers?" This design thinking challenge consisted of an 8 step process in different stages of design thinking. It was a collaborative effort with people from across the globe who chose to take action and speak up against the injustices of blatant sexism and violence. I demonstrated my expertise by helping guide the conversation to stay focused on the topic as well as with my knowledge of utilizing design thinking ideologies to better acquire solutions to overcome this challenge in Asian Pacific regions.

A day filled with brilliant speakers, thought-provoking videos and mind-blowing conversations. #TEDxMcMasterU is a unique event that resonated with the community, recognizing the involvement of people who have done something to inspire others whether it be in arts, engineering, technology, or social skills. My role was rotating between being the front desk coordinator, event logistics planner, and stage liaison ensuring the event ran smoothly; as well as taking care of the preparation before and after the event was over. That included setting up and taking down booths, unloading and loading excess resources, and clean up.

Unfortunately, this Hackathon did not take place due to COVID-19. However, the efforts put into it needed to be highlighted since the event got cancelled 2 weeks prior to it's scheduled runtime. • Assisted in identifying key sponsors for the Hackathon • Collaborated with several individuals on things like logo design, scheduling, website visuals • Created action plan boards on Trello in Slack • Identified and scouted potential locations • Arranged routes for easy accessibility • Planned the scheduling for the rooms • Selected the food and beverages, as well as volunteered to transport it