On Sunday July 14, we gathered at our office in Ghent for the closing ceremony of our annual Summer Academy. For four days three teams took on a unique challenge to help Bednet, a Belgian nonprofit organization, through a design sprint. The 13 graduates pitched their projects at In The Pocket, so the jury could pick the one and only winning team.

Team 1 - Margaux, Wout, Jana & Charlotte

Bednet helps sick children to follow the courses they’re missing. This is possible thanks to live streams via a device which includes a laptop, movable webcam, and a headset. A wonderful tool, although some users might have the feeling that their classmates will think they're weird, almost like a robot. That's why the first team of our Summer Academy created an AR experience, brought to live by scanning a QR code, who make the users feel more comfortable. The Bednet figure gives the user some commands, so he or she can try the setup before the first course.

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Team 2 - Rose, Len, Amos, Yens & Bente

The second team of the Summer Academy focused on the phase after the installation of the computers. The users are nervous, they don't know what will happen and if everything will work... These feelings can be tackled by playing games - alone or with classmates. These challenges help the user to discover the functionalities of Bednet and to communicate with the friends that he or she didn't saw since a long time.

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Team 3 - Linn, Rob, Gilles & Linde

The third group of the Summer Academy created Bedbuddy, a video platform and community between the Bednet user and the class. By creating an introduction video, the child can give an update on the current situation and talk about his or her feelings. There's even a special face filter, which can be used to hide your face if you're not feeling confident. Classmates can share pictures and texts on Bedbuddy too - this is stimulated via certain challenges.

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And the winner is...

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