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iFp Studios 

Real-projects w/ Real-impact

Our flagship program, iFp Studios is a teen-powered (ages 14-18) design and innovation studio that brings together aspiring creatives, technologists, and change-makers to collaborate with professional designers, software developers, engineers, and others on real-world student-initiated and client-sponsored projects.

iFp Teens use our methodology that blends ethnographic research methods with art, design, science, technology, and youth voice within a social justice framework to put their creative vision and tech savviness into community action. Our process instills empathy, encourages curiosity, inspires creativity, and unleashes novel technology-based experiences that challenge the status quo and spark positive change. 

iFp Studios is organized as a professional design studio. iFp Teens can specialize in:

  • User Research

  • 2D Design

  • 3D Modeling

  • Video / Motion Graphics

  • Web Design / Web Development

  • Game Development

  • Augmented Reality

Project partners sponsor our student-initiated projects and also hire us to add fresh viewpoints to their own social impact projects. Hundreds of people interact with our projects daily. 

STEM with a Social Justice lens

There is a growing body of research that supports using a social justice lens to actively engage learners in STEM content provides motivation and engagement not found in decontextualized academic knowledge. Students who may not see themselves as innovators often become impassioned through participation in topics that are important to them and have a community impact. iFp Studios offers students the opportunity to research and solve real-life problems often involving equity or social justice issues.

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Our highly experiential work-based learning environment focuses on student-initiated or client-sponsored projects to drive student engagement. All have deliverables that hundreds of people will interact with. Due to the high level of visibility and client expectations, learning is intensified. Most projects require new skills development that may vary from coding and emerging technologies to new research methods. Students learn in real-time to meet project demands. 

Since the projects have business objectives, students learn to negotiate tradeoffs between desirability, feasibility, and viability. There are also no artificial deadlines like the end of a school semester. Projects are complete when objectives are met.  Design reviews are embedded in the process providing students with opportunities to develop their communication skills. 

iFp Studios projects are (have been) located in some of Cambridge’s most highly trafficked places. Our most recent projects include the iconic “Looking Glass” sculpture in Kendall Square and the augmented reality installation “This Should Not Be” at the Cambridge Public Library, inspired by the George Floyd murder. 

Key mindsets, skills, and knowledge

iFp’s core mindsets and skills including creativity, collaboration, communication, empathy, resiliency, innovation, problem-solving, and systems thinking are reinforced in each engagement. Additionally, students become proficient in using creative technologies such as coding, web and app design, augmented reality, 2D/3D animation, and motion graphics. Over time, iFp students develop a burning desire to learn. By far, our most significant outcome.

Our learning environment mimics the real-world as close as possible including pay.  iFp Studios is structured as a paid internship. Teens are expected to adhere to professional workplace behaviors such as being responsible, punctual, and accountable.

Value Created for Clients

  • Build Authentic connections to the next generation of designers, scientists & technologists.

  • Create a fresh perspective of company’s story from youth’s viewpoint.

  • Increased youth awareness of company’s products and services.

  • Enriched employee engagement with local youth.

Value Created for Students

  • Build students’ confidence in their abilities to become part of the innovation economy.

  • Develop the innovator’s mindset & ability to bring new-to-the-world ideas to life.

  • Projects serve as excellent additions to college applications and portfolios. 

  • Demonstrate how Design & STEM skills are used in the real world.

  • Increase youth awareness of opportunities and pathways