OCNews

Okanagan College business students came out on top with their unique vision of how to reinvigorate the Royal B.C. Museum.

The Royal Roads Design Thinking Challenge welcomed teams from across Canada and the United States to compete in a case competition based on the concept of revitalizing exhibits and displays at the Royal B.C. Museum with the use of design thinking principles.

Business students Vasu Singla, Rebecca Thede, Kenneth Dolera and Chantelle Gaberel represented the College and worked with their coaches, Pamela Nelson and Robert Ryan, to promote inclusivity while modernizing the museum’s exhibits.

“Our team produced an excellent response to the challenge’s question 'How might museums make their offerings more vibrant and alive for the people and communities they serve?’” said Ryan, professor with the Okanagan School of Business. “Tackling a question that has no obvious answer gives our students a chance to cultivate their skills in creating new ways of approaching problems that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.”

The team worked tirelessly throughout the entire weekend to develop a solution including three distinct but cohesive elements: incorporating sidewalk art and stickers, pop-up artifacts and projected digital artifacts and collections. The approach would help make exhibitions more accessible, being that they could be easily implemented at various locations. The means by which the exhibitions could be experienced incorporated both modern visual techniques as well as unique, but simple methods.

“The impact that we made, with our ideas, that will be really happening with the B.C. Royal Museum,” said Thede. “We actually made an impact with a tangible result.”

Not only will the Royal B.C. Museum be implementing the team’s solutions, but the team also received $6,000 for placing first in the competition.