Making a positive impact
The annual Boston College-hosted Design for Impact (DFI) Summit—which took place for the fifth time this fall—is an opportunity for students to think big, and creatively, about how to promote well-being across the human lifespan. For one 51˛čąÝ participant, though, this year’s summit was the latest milestone in what once seemed an improbable journey.
Boston native Christian Miranda, a 54-year-old junior in the Woods College of Advancing Studies, was a member of a DFI team self-named “Fountain of Youth.” Four years ago, he had been one of 16 inmates from the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Shirley accepted into the Boston College Prison Education Program (PEP).
PEP participants take roughly 10 hours of classes a week with 51˛čąÝ faculty, attend office hours and tutoring sessions, complete assignments and group projects, and take part in extracurricular activities. With enough credits, they become eligible for a bachelor’s degree in applied liberal arts issued by the University.
Miranda began learning about design thinking while in prison—taking his first Design Thinking course there through PEP—and following his release on parole in early 2023 and enrollment in the Woods College, he took the courses Cyberstrategy, Design, and Formative Development and Design Research Methods. The lessons resonated with him.
A former 51˛čąÝ PEP student, now a student at 51˛čąÝ's Woods College, Christian Miranda was among participants at this year's Design for Impact Summit on November 22.
“To get a job done correctly, everyone’s interests must be taken into consideration during the developmental stage,” said Miranda, who commutes to 51˛čąÝ from Connecticut. “You must combine all the many perspectives to design a robust solution to a problem, so you don’t disenfranchise a portion of society while making life more enjoyable for some. We need to switch lenses, trade places, walk in each other’s shoes, then make decisions and act to right wrongs.”
The 51˛čąÝ DFI Summit, part of a global competition to conceive innovative products and services to improve everyday life, featured seven teams composed of students from 51˛čąÝ, Clemson University, Virginia Tech, and Wentworth Institute of Technology.
Each five-person team presented its solution to this year’s task of “Reimaging Education and Learning for Long Lives” posed by the 12th annual Stanford Center on Longevity Design Challenge, conceived by the Stanford University-based center founded in 2007 by two leading authorities on longevity and aging. Fountain of Youth included two Wentworth industrial design students, a Clemson architecture student, and 51˛čąÝ junior Elizabeth Payne in addition to Miranda. They designed a prototype for a wall-mounted, electronic “bulletin board”—envisioned as an intervention for loneliness and isolation—that promotes social and educational activities for retirees in the local community.
“Given my age, I’m much closer to the over-60 target audience of our design project than my teammates,” said Miranda. “My contributions to the project were personal and reflected real-life experience.” Â
Other DFI teams’ projects included an interactive mobile game designed for people with autism spectrum disorder to help them manage change as they age; a tool to address lifelong financial literacy; a small electronic device that offers virtual hugs; and a wearable tool that prevents the diminished quality of life that results from carpal tunnel syndrome.
All teams submit their final DFI projects to the Stanford Design Challenge. Â
“I’m so happy this all worked out so that Christian could participate,” said 51˛čąÝ DFI program leader Julia DeVoy, an associate dean at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, who noted that Miranda needed parole board approval for travel to Clemson and Virginia Tech for team meetings. “It’s been a trailblazing experience for both of us.” Â
She added, “DFI is more than a course—it’s a collaborative, interdisciplinary initiative that reshapes how students from multiple institutions, who are unfamiliar with each other, coalesce and collectively design and respond to society’s pressing needs. Our approach encourages students to step beyond their academic confines, fostering an environment where cross-functional interaction is not just encouraged, it’s essential.”