I’ve been following the amazing work Stanford University d.school has been doing for a few years, so when I got the email saying I was accepted to join them at Stanford campus for their Launchpad Apprenticeship, I was delighted. I had planned a 3-day stop in San Francisco on my trip back to Australia from Mexico, so the timing worked out just great!
Launchpad 10 is a celebrated accelerator program, which recruit a cohort of dedicated apprenti to work with stellar startups. It is also a great opportunity to work directly with Perry Klebahn and Jeremy Utley to push startups to scale utilising various design thinking methods.
I had been looking forward to my trip for days. Then, before I knew it, I was taking an Uber from San Francisco’s airport to Palo Alto, ready to go, camera in hand…

Nothing says “Welcome to Stanford” like Palm Drive, with its perfectly placed palm trees for a mile long.

Arriving to d.School

The d. School sure knows how to delight a designer

The second floor of d. School is what my dreams are made of: plenty of hot glue sticks, tape, cutter blades, sticky notes, pliers, cardboard, whiteboards, etc.

All hands on deck! time to get to work.

My selected startup was Kaleido AR, an Augmented Reality startup. I was able to help them remotely with some design work over the next few days. The project is really cool, make sure to check them out!

After a fun kick-off session and plenty of inspiring ideas in my head, they pointed that a stroll around the campus was necessary before wrapping up the day.

A stroll around Main Quad

Memorial Church

That would turn out to be the best day weather-wise during my 3-day trip.

What a cool experience!

I’m back to Australia now, thinking about my amazing first trip to the Bay Area and realising now why everyone is charmed about it.

Needless to say, I have to go back there soon! maybe I should get a second degree at Stanford? Hey. A girl can dream 😉