Afterclass - Student Projects
Winner of Drivhusets Ideathon 2026 - Connecting students for projects in Universities
MAY 2026Winner of Drivhusets Ideathon 2026 - Connecting students for projects in Universities
MAY 2026The 2026 Ideathon, hosted by Drivhuset, welcomed students to practice on exploring different ideas using AI (Loveable). My team came up with our own idea based on a shared frustration: Student group projects and matching those with entering industry experience.
It is difficult for student's to participate in cross functional project and finding people with the same motivation.
A way for students with the same motivations and goals to easily connect beyond academic programs for projects.
A website that connects students in Swedish universities to different projects and cross functional teams.
UX Researcher & Designer
Four students
Brainstorming, desktop research, affinity diagram, user flow & prototyping
Figjam, Figma & Lovable
As a team of students, we found that we shared in common that we struggled to describe our responsibility in portfolios from academic projects where everyone technically had the same role.
Along with the perceived difficulty of getting internships or entry-level jobs, degrees alone do not feel like enough - experience and projects are more and more relevant for competition.
Our slogan became: "It's hard to get experience, without experience."
One of our first thoughts on the problem
I did desktop research to better understand the field of what recruiters expected and the needs and behaviours of students trying to get hired after graduation. We also brainstormed our experience as undergrad students applying for internships, which together could be summarised into these pain points.
Based on the research, I created a user flow to communicate with my team and set the functional expectations for our prototype.
Userflow of joining or creating a project
Design profile: color palette and illustrations
We made wireframes, mood boards and focused on refining the visual style of the website with our own hand drawn design elements.
The team prompted, iterated and refined the design and functionality in Lovable, based on the pain points we had defined.
After receiving feedback externally from mentors and exchanging feedback internally, we landed on this final and simple MVP prototype to present and pitch our idea for a community website where students can create and connect to different projects with different roles.
In a Swedish culture that is quite introverted, it can be difficult to find other students to do projects with. Neither does academia promote cross program projects excessively in Higher Ed.
AfterTo make this easier, there is a forum where students can join different projects and have the ability to create their own projects to find teammates.
A reccuring student experience was conducting academic projects in teams where essentially everyone had the same role.
AfterTo make it easier to join and gain experience in cross functional teams, projects have simple role specific positions to ensure skill-diverse teams.
With these functions we hope that our idea could bring together ambitious students to practice and hone their skills in cross functional team settings, and maybe even build strong connections on the way into the industry.
This idea also aimed to be adopted by University Institutes such as Stockholm University to incorporate and give students a better opportunity in diverse projects for building a strong portfolio.
The idea was well received by the judges, who found it was a relevant issue today where postgraduate students may struggle to get jobs, and named it the winning idea for the Ideathon 2026.
The weight of communication. Under time pressure and high expectations, our team did an excellent job in communication, organising, giving feedback and having fun, which made our workflow clear.
"Less is more". Instead of creating a whole system, focusing on an MVP with the essential functions gave a clear message, which made it easy to pitch our idea and concept.
We also got to try the practice doing prototypes with Loveable while incorporating our design knowledge to refine AI generated content to communicate and adapt our idea to an audience.
It was a great experience to find a problem and come up with an idea in such short time, and put in perspective how to present our work for an audience that will judge you - and being able to take it all in as feedback.