Wednesday, October 7, 2015 // The Statement
7B
optiMize: Saving the world, one idea at a time
E
rin Johnson had just moved into her dorm room at
Bursley and found her way around campus when
she saw a poster: “ ‘Why not me?’ Stop waiting
for someone else to change the world.” The poster for the
student organization optiMize would ultimately chart the
course for her time at the University.
A year later Johnson, a sophomore studying business and
international studies, is president of the organization. She
said prior to joining optiMize she had minimal experience
in entrepreneurship, but the passion and support from
members of the organization inspired her.
“ ‘Stop waiting for someone else to change the world’ —
seeing that phrase come to life, that’s probably why I got so
involved,” she said.
Since 2012, optiMize has helped students with social
innovation ideas make them a reality. The programs pairs
student-entrepreneurs with experienced mentors, and
offers $100,000 in prize money to the student groups that
advocate for their ideas most successfully. The top five
teams each win $5,000 in funding to create their design. The
projects are funded primarily through donor money, but the
group also receives funding from LSA
Mentors can come from all backgrounds: “near peer”
mentors are students who have previously participated in
the program, while older mentors from LSA, alumni, and
entrepreneurs in the Ann Arbor community.
“Maybe someone has an idea but they have no idea how
to get started, or no idea how to put it into action,” Johnson
said. “Everyone has the soft skills; the mentors come in and
really help them with the hard skills: how exactly are you
going to implement this, how exactly are you going to take
this idea and like what channel are you going to go through,
who are you really going to market to?”
Last year ADAPT — a core team composed of Engineering
junior Laura Murphey and Art & Design senior Sidney
Krandall — won the competition by creating an umbrella
attachment for wheelchairs.
The team met at an optiMize “speed dating” event, which
pairs students interested in participating but do not have a
partner or a clear idea yet with others in the same boat. One
of members came up with their idea when she visited the
Ann Arbor Veteran’s Association hospital and asked what
the patients needed. It’s this kind of problem solving Erin
loves.
“That’s the coolest thing I think about optiMize is that
when people notice a problem, they can follow through, and
we provide them with the resources to actually take that
idea or the problem that they saw and help them along the
solution,” she said. “Seeing people go and take real world
experience and being like ‘I’m going to change that, that’s
not that hard to change’ like making an accessory for a
wheelchair — that improves so many people’s lives, that
makes so much of a positive impact, but all you had to do
was figure out how you’re going to attach an umbrella to a
wheelchair.”
Since last year, ADAPT has used its winnings to expand
and become a real company working on several other
attachments for wheelchairs, and to improve disabled
people’s lives.
For people like Johnson, it’s these success stories and
the reach optiMize has that keeps her passionate about the
organization.
“As soon as I got there I knew this was (a good fit for
me), because I have a lot of experience with community
service, and stuff like that, but it was always like a one on
one basis — I tutored this person after school, I do this, I
do this — but like I never felt like the work I was doing was
making an impact on the community as a whole,” she said.
“Being able to even help someone take their idea and even
play the smallest part in helping them make that dream, that
passion, into something real. That was the most rewarding
thing for me.”
As president, Johnson hopes to share her positive
experience with as many people as possible and spread
optiMize’s message that there doesn’t have to be a tradeoff
between work and life. She believes in this message so much
that after graduation, Erin would like to work somewhere
with the same principles as optiMize.
“People talk about concepts of work-life balance a lot,
and what we want to show people is that just because you’re
doing something to make a living doesn’t mean you can’t be
passionate about it,” Johnson said. “Doing what you love
and going to work everyday — they don’t have to be these
two mutually exclusive things. The more overlap your life
passions have with what you do on a daily basis — that’s
what it should be.”
by Emma Kinery, Daily Staff Reporter
PHOTO BY LUNA ANNA ARCHEY
“Stop waiting for someone
else to change the world.”