The Design For Social Innovation program at the School of Visual Arts (SVA-DSI) in NYC instructs students in the art of social design, the application of design methodologies to solutions for complex human problems. On Tuesday, May 1, 2018 we attended the final thesis project presentations at this amazing school. All 14 presentations were inspiring, though we were particularly proud of Stephen Morrison and Hrudaya Veena Yanamandala and their creation of an app for cancer survivors—Headway: A Survivors’ Guide to Survivorship. A real-time survivor’s guide to support for cancer survivors, Headway connects survivors to each other, and to caring experts who can give them what they need to thrive.

Here is a quote about us from their final thesis pdf:

“We worked with survivors who’d found support groups, survivors who’d formed support groups, and we partnered with SHAREing & CAREing—a breast cancer support non-profit formed by survivors in Queens, NY 24 years ago. We were consistently amazed at and grateful for their openness and generosity to share their stories, experiences and their work with us, allowing us to come back again and again, over time to clarify and confirm our understanding, to build and test prototypes and interventions that worked across their range of experiences—and to learn of these measures were appropriate, possible or desirable.”