Friends of Kids with Cancer

Helping kids with cancer… be kids!

Friends of Kids with Cancer is devoted to enriching the daily lives of children undergoing treatment for, and survivors of, cancer and blood-related diseases. Our mission is to be an advocate for these special kids providing them and their families with the educational, emotional, and recreational support needed as a result of the long hours of chemotherapy, illness and isolation.

Friends of Kids with Cancer is unique:

The entire family unit benefits from our services

All money raised through events, grants and donations stays in the

St. Louis Community

Focuses on the importance of these special kids and their families getting through TODAY

Fills in the gaps from treatment to make each child WHOLE again

Learn more at: FriendsofKids.com

Two cross-functional locally sourced teams are ready to compete head-to-head! Each team has a diverse set of skills: researchers, designers, engineers, artists, marketers, strategists, makers and futurists. Their backgrounds range from private to public sector, from large-scale consulting, small business and everything in between.

Skeleton Crew:

Dr. Nikki Smith

Christian Martinez

Elizabeth Reeb

Scott Mayer

Vern Garcia

A Bunch of Ideates:

Brett Miller

Ben Newmark

Melina Lindskog

Jimi Raffety

Amy Hoffman

Holly Schroeder

This Senior UX Researcher and Writer is a proud South St. Louis native. Always curious and ready to rumble - synthesize findings, sketch a diagram, or conduct an impromptu interview. As a self-identified member of the Crip Crew, all things accessibility make her heart skip a beat.

Amanda Andres

Business Anthropology nerd who loves to get her hands dirty with field work. Computer games taught her systems design, Cheri Kempf taught her strategy and focus, and Noriko Yuasa taught her dedication and deeper meaning. Inherited her mother’s meandering storytelling style. On the lookout for communitas.

Niarcas Jeffrey

At 1904labs, Niarcas works with VPs & Directors as their product manager to identify then ease their customer’s frustrations & pain-points through delivered software.

Crowd Participation
We give the audience a chance to cheer for the team they think came up with the best idea.

Judges Panel
Each judge gives a score between 1 - 10, across three categories:

Strength of the Idea

Human-Centeredness

Feasibility

Nonprofit Decision
Most importantly the nonprofit will choose the idea they believe will be the best way to continue helping the children and families they serve. Whichever team the nonprofit chooses, wins despite the crowd cheers or judges’ scores.

6:30 PM - Pre-game announcements

Introduce: Sponsors, Teams, Judges, Nonprofit

Review the night

Reveal the problem space

Coin flip

7:00 PM - First half of collaborative experience design (35 min)

7:35 PM - Halftime & Report-outs

7:50 PM - Second half Starts (35 min)

8:25 PM - Final pitches from the teams

8:45 PM - Crowd cheers for the ideas

8:50 PM - Judges score the ideas

9:10 PM - Nonprofit announces the winning team

9:15 PM - Announce the winning team’s prize

9:20 PM - Wrap up announcements and team pictures

9:25 PM - Mingle!

We strongly believe in designing ‘with’ people, not ‘for’ them. While working, we hope teams will leverage the crowd through polling, participatory design, early feedback to ideas, etc.

To help teams better identify who they want to talk to, you may have volunteered to wear a sticker:

Green Sticker = I or someone close to me has experienced childhood cancer.

Orange Sticker = I have donated, volunteered or participated in events to support the fight against cancer.

If a team asks for your help and you feel comfortable lending a hand, they may pick your brian about a particular topic or may ask you to provide feedback on a concept they’re working on. If comfortable helping, please offer them your honest opinions, insights and experiences.