Connection 2 Care

Mary Beth Dunkenberger, Elham Morshedzade, Akshay Sharma

The deep knowledge and skillsets related to the research and design process prepares our senior ID students for more complex projects. For example, in Figure 4 you can see a product designed by our students that was heavily influenced by the connections to our local communities (users & stakeholders) and a range of external resources. This project was a result of a collaboration between the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and the Industrial Design Program, which also became a part of a much larger grant proposal, “Combating Opioid Overdose through Community-level Intervention,” awarded by University of Baltimore. Currently, the research team are working on manufacturing close to 100 units for a pilot study