Hi there!
My name is Johannes and I’m a 24 year old student from St. Pölten UAS. I’m currently in a Master’s program for Interactive Technologies, with a focus on Augmented and Virtual Reality.
This semester, I decided to take part in iLab, an international interdisciplinary project semester. On this portfolio page I will show our project and everything I’ve learned along the way.
About me (And why I joined iLab)
I’m an very enthusiastic person, who is passionate about lots of different things. These passions can sometimes change and range from Game Development over photography and cooking, to going crazy at karaoke bars. I’m generally relatively extroverted and communicative, although sometimes to a point where it becomes overbearing for others.
I’ve taken part in a European Project Semester (EPS) in Belgium during my Bachelor studies. Over the course of this semester, I grew so much as a person and as a team member, that I decided I wanted to have this experience once more in my master’s. However, this time I couldn’t go abroad that easily, which is why I’ve decided to join iLab.
At the beginning of iLab, we get tasked with a problem our society currently faces. My teammate Aïcha and I were assigned the following question:
How can we use digitalization to promote natural protection and biodiversity?
In the first stage, we had to do research around this question and re-phrase it into a tangible problem, which we can provide a solution for. The problem we found is that many people, who are already aware of climate change and its impacts, still choose not to take personal action, because they see the governments responsible. Furthermore, they feel like there impact as an individual is negligible.
At face value, this mindset might sound reasonable, but the flaw behind it is that a government is also just the sum of its parts (the citizens). And if their mindset doesn’t change, the government won’t either. Finally, while one single person really doesn’t make much of a difference, if everyone thinks that way, nothing will change.
This problem is the reason why we created Everyday Heroes.
Everyday Heroes is an App that motivates people to change their lifestyle towards a more sustainable one, by challenging them in different areas of life. People can either take these challenges alone, team up with a friend, or find a random buddy from around the world, who wants to take the same challenge.
Throughout the challenge, the impact you have on the planet is calculated, and displayed to you in various numbers, such as kg CO² saved. There are also communities around certain aspects of life (e.g. nutrition, travel etc.), where you can see the total impact this community has generated together. This emphasizes how the impact can be greatly amplified by multiple people taking part in the challenge.
Skills I improved
Since this was a rather development-heavy project, I thought beforehand that I could exercise some of my strengths. However, because we decided to shift the actual development towards the end of the semester, and focus more on prototyping and analyzing the viability of our idea, some of the expertise I could provide was from rather unexpected areas.
Webdesign
Shortly before our final presentation, I created a small website for our project, so that the viewers of our presentation could stay in touch with us and subscribe to a mailing list, where we will release future updates about the development of the app. You can click here to join our mailing list too!
Business modeling
Last summer, I took part in an entrepreneurship bootcamp in Austin, Texas. There, I learned all the essential skills needed to start your own business. Since the iLab is focused around developing projects that are ready to implement in the real world, these skills came in quite handy when it came to analysing our business opportunity.
Since our app is supposed to be run as a nonprofit, we needed to think of ways how to generate enough money to sustain our business. For this, and to show our value proposition, we decided to create a business model canvas. This canvas is very similar to the Lean Canvas, which I’ve used a few times in the past, so I could provide my knowledge in that area.
User testing and research
We created our prototype in a very iterative way, where we continuously tested our current prototype on people and then refined it. Before that, we had an initial research phase where we ran surveys online and on the street, to get people’s general opinions on the subject of climate change and nature protection.
I had experience, both with creating surveys and setting up user tests, from my study background. Therefore, I took part in these tasks and helped to make all the tests run as smoothly as possible. What specifically learned during the iLab is how to spread surveys as far as possible by using social media channels and forums.
When we ran our survey on climate change and opinions, we decided to post it on multiple platforms, amongst which the subreddit r/climatechange, where it went trending and we got around 200 replies in one night.
New skills I learned
The iLab is all about interdisciplinary work and gaining some experience and knowledge in fields different from your own. Broadening one’s knowledge is very important for young professionals, and I tasked myself to learn in as many areas as possible.
Graphic Prototyping
In our project we focused heavily on prototyping rather than development of the final product. Therefore, I spent plenty of time with various graphic prototyping solutions for apps, which I had never done before. I learned to do both low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes using everything from pen and paper to elaborate software solutions such as Marvel and Figma.
App Development with Flutter
While we didn’t finish the entire app during the iLab semester, I got to learn a lot about mobile app development using Google’s Flutter, which is an engine that allows you to develop great looking apps for Android and iOS simultaneously.
I previously had only little experience with Android app development, and none at all with flutter, so this entire skillset was new to me. However, I underestimated how long it would take me to learn flutter to a level where I can actually develop the app, which is why we didn’t get as far as we wanted to.
Google Firebase
For the back-end of our app, we decided to go with Google Firebase. This was also new to me, since I had previously only worked with my own databases written in MySQL, and had no experience with NoSQL databases and Firebase’s access functions. By now I have a solid grasp of the entire Firebase ecosystem.
Branding
In Katarína, we had an expert for marketing and branding on board. These areas have so far managed to evade my learning efforts, so I tried my best to support her where I could, and learned a few things about branding strategies, archetypes, and brand values on the way.
Personal goals
The iLab focuses heavily on you setting your own goals and then working towards them. The goals should be phrased according to the SMART goals framework (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound), and are continuously rephrased throughout the program.
I tasked myself to work towards three personal goals in different areas, where I felt that I was still lacking.
Time management
I tasked myself to improve my time-management skills. I’ve always been a quite chaotic and unorganized person, and while this opportunistic approach has mostly benefitted me, there have been times where I felt like I was wasting a lot of time and energy because I was unable to make concrete plans and get organized.
This is specifically a problem, when there are lots of different tasks at hand, and I need to balance my workload. Therefore, I decided to work through an exercise book called “Stop wasting time”, and to build a solid schedule, especially for the final months of iLab.
This has also helped my separate my work from my personal life better, and has generally given me a more relaxed attitude towards heavy workloads.
Stage confidence
While I’m already generally pretty confident while holding presentations, there’s always been situations where I’d suddenly get extremely nervous, and I wanted to find the cause of this and work on improving it.
Therefore, I organized various pitching practice sessions in the form of game nights in the iLab. There, we played a game called “Pitch Deck”, where you have to make up stupid business pitches on the fly.
I realized that I am more relaxed when I’m less prepared. The reason for that is that my mindset isn’t something like “I’m going to hold a presentation”, but instead “I’m going to tell an exciting story and capture the audience’s attention.” Therefore, I worked on adapting this mindset even for well-rehearsed presentations.
Team communication
In my previous project semesters, I often felt like I had to choose between either taking a leading / interpersonal role, or focusing more on software development. I never managed to balance those two, so I could contribute in both areas.
Therefore I tasked myself with finding a way to do both of these things in the iLab project. The way I made it work is to include that into my scheduling process. This means that I scheduled programming tasks, as well as communicative tasks, such as regular checkups with other teams, to see if they have any resources we could need, or vice versa.
Furthermore, I took the role of an appointment-keeper in our team, where I reminded the team every evening of the upcoming events for the next day. This helped the team a lot to stay on track.
Attitudes
During the iLab, my personality also developed a lot. I learned to challenge my own beliefs and morals, especially those that I have always been certain about, and have never been questioned by anyone around me. I learned to be more compassionate with others around different work ethics and mindsets. Overall, I feel I am a way more consistent and authentic personality now than I was before. Furthermore, I can channel my energy and dedication better towards our common goal, as would also be attested by my teammates.
Despite [all of the stress], you manage to stay relaxed, in an impressive manner. Even though we know how much is still missing, or how long into the night we’ll have to stay up, you’re always approaching that in a laid-back manner, or at least that’s how it seems.
Carola Berger
From the start I’ve admired your way of thinking, your ideas go in all kind of directions. Your dedication is definitely something I’m a bit jealous of.
Aïcha Klein
I admire your overview and insight into a number of things, your passion, the effort to look at problems from multiple perspectives, and the willingness to discuss. When I joined you and Aïcha in the team, I was really glad because I knew it would work out and that it was going to be worth it.
Katarína Pribylová
Besides his dope professional skills, Johannes is a very empathetic and friendly person, who is easy to trust. He offers to help where he can and is always funny.
Lena Schmaldienst