Dilab
Student SPOTLIGHTS
Quynh Tran
Quynh Tran, a senior at San Diego State University has been a member of DiLab as a UI/UX designer since 2022. Last semester, Quynh worked on the open innovation platform project of redesigning the LEGO Ideas website. Her goal, along with her team’s, was to use previous findings from interviews to improve certain problems of the website that people were dealing with by redesigning those aspects of the website. This semester, Quynh worked as a UX designer with a startup called Hover Cover. Her team redesigned their website accordingly to the startup’s objectives and successfully launched it on Shopify. Earlier this year, Quynh, along with two other DiLab members on the UX team, Devika and Oceana, entered a designathon hosted by UCI and was able to place among finalists out of 65 teams and around 300 students from various colleges all over the country. Quynh’s goals for the future include developing her skills as a UX designer and obtaining a master’s degree in Psychology. She is determined to continue her work in improving user experiences and making websites more user-friendly.
#UXdesigner #UXresearch #UXteam #UIUX #userexperience #userresearch #userinterface #UXdesign #digitaldesign #webdesign #Dilab #digitalinnovation #SDSU #psychology #designchallenge #designathon
Spacetime Pitch Competition
Founders Ali Salman and Bekhruz Nuriddinov gave their pitch at the Spacetime Social Pitch Competition on April 13th at the University of San Diego, Knauss School of Business, alongside Dylan Fitzpatrick who was there representing his student-run Venture Capital fund. Ali Salamon said that “Participating in the Spacetime pitch competition was an exhilarating experience. Our team invested months of hard work and dedication towards refining our idea in ZIP, and being able to present it to a large audience was nothing short of incredible. The feedback we received from the pitch was invaluable, and we are eager to incorporate it into our future plans for Warm.”
Sean Flanagan
As the Digital Innovation’s Lab Coordinator and consultant, Sean‘s primary focus is conducting market research and analysis for startups, with the aim of identifying areas where digital transformations and disruptive technologies can be effectively implemented to drive innovation and growth. Sean is a second-year Finance major and is working towards a career in Venture Capital, specializing in SaaS and tech startups. He is currently the Vice President of Fundraising at the Entrepreneur society were he is honing his skills in business development, entrepreneurship, and fundraising. Additionally he is on the executive board for Campus Program Funding and the Financial Affairs Committee at SDSU where he plays an important role in designing the budget process through financial modeling for the university.
#SDSU #Dilab #technology #AI #SaaS #Venturecapital #Privateequity #analyists #tech #startups #fundraising #entrepreneurship #dataanalytics
Venture Capital Investment Competition
Congratulations to the SDSU team on an incredible achievement! Winning the west regional final at the international Venture Capital Investment Competition is a major accomplishment and a testament to the hard work, dedication, and talent of everyone involved. We are especially proud of the two talented members, Dylan Fitzpatrick and Bekhruz Nuriddinov, who contributed to this success. Your investment acumen and strategic thinking were clearly on display, and it’s inspiring to see how you represented SDSU with such excellence. This victory is well-deserved, and we can’t wait to see what’s next for you all—well done!
Tyler Co
As part of the Digital Innovations Consultant team, Tyler Co’s work at DiLab has allowed him to hone his skills in big data analysis, which he hopes to utilize in his future career in data analysis and data science. Tyler primarily works on market research and uses his statistical knowledge to analyze data and provide valuable insights to the team. As a fourth-year Finance major with Interdisciplinary Studies and Statistics minors at San Diego State University, Tyler is highly involved in different organizations on campus. He is the Vice President of Finance for Delta Sigma Pi, a professional co-ed business fraternity, and a treasurer for The Look Magazine, a club that aims to highlight student art, fashion, and design at San Diego State. He also works as a Junior Counselor at SDSU’s Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, where he helps students with any financial issues they may have. With his vast array of skills and experiences, Tyler is poised for success in his future career, whether as a financial analyst or advisor or in a big data analysis or data science role.
#SDSU #Dilab #technology #bigdata #datascience #dataanalysis #financialanalyst #financialadvisor
Big Data Hackathon 2022
In this year’s Big Data hackathon, DiLab members, Griffin You, Dylan Fitzpatrick, Nhat Huynh, and their team members Jaxon Hill and Duong Lu, took home first place as the “Best Overall Project”! Their project presented their solution Cenos AI, a cloud-based software-as-a-service platform delivered via an API in existing patient management software to connect patient symptoms with common diagnoses simpler and faster. We congratulate them all on this amazing accomplishment. Griffin says, “The opportunity to work alongside my team to devise a solution tackling healthcare problems is an experience I will never forget. Not only was I able to gain new skills in UI/UX design, project/product management, and market research, but I also learned a whole lot about real-world problems in healthcare and how to address them using AI and machine learning.” A special thanks to Dr. Ming-Hsaing Tsou, Cathy Pucher, Dr. Atsushi Nara, Dr. Amy Schmitz Weiss, Dr. Gabriela Fernandez, ZIP Launchpad, and Sharp Healthcare for organizing and sponsoring this unforgettable event.
Nhat Huyuh
Working on the “Cybersecurity and Risk Initiative in Big Accounting Firms: An Experiential Perspective on Training Programs” project, Nhat Huynh (Information Systems ’24) explores the relationships between cybersecurity training initiatives, employee training experiences, and training outcomes in Big Four. His project will provide a framework to aid companies to design, implement and evaluate cybersecurity training to mitigate the risk of cyberattacks. Nhat, joined DiLab in 2022, is currently leading two projects and sharpening his big data analytics skills.
#cybersecurity #digitalinnovation #dilab #SDSU #risk #initiative #accounting #employees #project
Griffin You
A digital innovation consultant at SDSU’s Digital Innovation Lab (DiLab), Griffin You is focused on competitive analysis for tech startups. The purpose of his current project is to identify the market potential for AI-enabled drone-based inspection. Griffin You is also a second-year, management information system major aspiring to pursue a career in Venture Capital, emphasizing mental health. To achieve his aspirations, he is currently a Financial Analysts Intern at Paramount Pictures and a Venture Capital Intern at Lair East Labs.
#SDSU #Dilab #technology #AI #drones #management #mentalhealth #analyists
Kelsey Azmitia – Project Coordinator
Pursuing a career in project management, Kelsey Azmitia is going into her 3rd year at SDSU and as the project coordinator for SDSU’s Digital Innovation lab. She has also interned as Channel project manager for Woodruff Communications and is pursuing her degree in Management Information Systems. Kelsey is also involved in different school activities as she is rushing for Appa Kappa Psi next semester, in the mechatronics club, and is working toward her SDSU Leadership Certificate. Being very passionate about technology and business, Kelsey says she wants to pursue her career as a project manager for an IT company, creating an advantageous work environment for her team. She says, “My goal is not only to lead a team and project to success, but to also be an equitable, honest, trustworthy, and honorable leader, as I want my team to be able to confide in each other and myself.”
Melissa Klase & Olivia Connors
While we are approaching the post-pandemic world, organizations are at a crossroads, going back to the office or embracing digital workspaces as the new normal. Many argue that the reliance on virtual work environments has notable side-effects such as communications breakdown, unhealthy team dynamics, unregulated and mindless system use, causing digital fatigue and loss in productivity. To explore this issue, Melissa Klase and Olivia Connors combine the awareness and self-regulation power of mindfulness with the action generating power of reflectiveness to promote employee well-being and increase overall productivity in digitally-enabled or supported work environments. They will present the results of their work and their paper entitled “Reflectiveness: The Missing Link between Digital Mindfulness and Mindful Use of Digital Technology” at the 28th Americas Conference on Information Systems in Minneapolis. Melissa is a fourth-year student at SDSU College of Sciences with an emphasis in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. She is a member of SDSU Digital Innovation Lab for more than two years as well as a member of several honor societies, including NSCS, Phi Theta Kappa, and Tau Sigma. Olivia Connors is graduating in May 2022 and is currently working at a substance abuse private practice in New Jersey.
Joey Kettle
Working on the “Advancing Digital Innovation in SMEs: Challenges and Opportunities from an Employee Engagement Perspective” project, Joey Kettle focuses on the limitations and/or challenges of advancing Digital Innovation and digital entrepreneurship in small-medium enterprises (SMEs). So far, Joey and the team have identified three barriers that can inhibit the advancement of digital innovation- organizational, technological, and environmental barriers- and introduced the concept of digital innovation potency as how SMEs can monitor and respond to these barriers. In addition to this, Joey is a 3rd-year Business Administration- Information Systems student at Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University who enjoys playing for the Men’s Division 1 soccer team at SDSU.
#digitalinnovation #business #smebusiness #innovation#employeeengagement
Nikita Velji
Nikita Velji is on a mission to rediscover the process of Digital Transformation and how it unfolds from an employee’s perspective. Her main focus is to understand how to drive digital transformation within the organization without disrupting culture and discouraging employees from active participation. With her great passion for international business and technology, she compares and contrasts this process across countries to offer more context-specific recommendations for practice. Nikita is a graduate member of the Digital Innovation Lab (DiLab) and studying MS in Information Systems at Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University.
Timothy Seitola
Researching Digital Entrepreneurial, Timothy Seitola focuses on identifying the underlying characteristics that shape an entrepreneurial mindset in a digital context. Timothy interviews founders and works on developing an instrument for companies and institutions to assess their current employees’ intrapreneurship/ entrepreneurial abilities. The instrument can be also used for hiring and promotions. Timothy will graduate with an MBA degree from Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University with a focus on Information Systems this semester. He will join Halma PLC and start his career by participating in their renowned leadership development program.
Jordan Chen
Using advanced text-mining techniques, Jordan Chen is gathering large amounts of data from TrustPilot and similar platforms to understand user experience and user experience management on the sharing economy platforms like Airbnb and Uber. Jordan is currently working on the method section of his project titled “Service Failure Recovery Strategies in the Sharing Economy: A Phenomenological Analysis.” Jordan is also a research assistant at the SDSU Artificial Intelligence Lab working on an augmented reality project for the Department of Homeland Security and has helped organize the 8th annual TEDxSDSU event as the Chief Financial Officer. He is currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and a minor in Management at Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University, then going on to pursue a Master’s in Analytics or Data Science post-graduation.
Jordan Klair
Jordan Klair has been focusing on how digital mindfulness practices can affect work practices and digital transformation at an organizational level. Her goal is to contribute to the understanding and measuring of digital mindfulness at the team and organizational leadership levels. She is a senior psychology major emphasizing I/O psychology with a minor in honors interdisciplinary studies at SDSU College of Sciences. In addition to contributing to Digital Innovation Lab (DiLab), she is a research assistant at the SDSU Motivation and Social Identity Lab. In this lab, she specifically researched how the COVID-19 pandemic affected multiple aspects of STEM graduate students’ learning experiences.