Welcome to the 2018 Capstone Cohort!

Welcome to the 2018-19 Capstone Cohort! This year, BLI is excited to support 9 teams as they pursue collaborative projects of their own design. Projects range from entrepreneurial ventures for software applications, means for improving access to higher education opportunities, and social justice programming in a variety of domains.  BLI Capstone teams will find evidence to guide their project decisions and engage in substantive analytic work before and during project implementation.

The 2018 Capstone Bootcamp in early May kicked off this program. During this week-long intensive, teams worked together to clarify their visions, receive feedback from peers, staff, and invited guests, and detail a research plan for the summer. Highlights of the Bootcamp include a “speed-dating” session, where students participated in lightening rounds of sharing their project visions. At the end of the week, students presented and received feedback on their plans to a panel that included Dave Barger (BLI Founder), Crystal Ashby (BLI Strategic Partner), Sara Saylor (Ginsberg Center Asst. Director), and Clara Li (2017-18 Capstone Participant). Reflecting on their experience, one student said they “loved feeling supported by other capstone teams and the BLI staff, and learning about the importance of researching your community and benchmarkers.” Another said that the Bootcamp “experience was really valuable and opened our eyes to everything we have to consider with a project such as ours…we wouldn’t have been able to get where we are without all the valuable feedback and advice from BLI staff.”  

Best of luck to all our Capstone teams as they embark on a summer of data collection and discovery. Here’s to a great start and many more exciting happenings in the future!