MID Industry Innovation Studio
Real Industry Problems. Interdisciplinary Teams. Innovative Solutions.
Wichita State University's MID Industry Innovation Studio connects businesses and organizations with talented graduate students who apply Design Thinking, emerging technologies, AI, and interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle complex industry challenges and develop meaningful solutions.
Real Industry Challenges. Fresh Perspectives. Meaningful Solutions.
Bring Us Your Toughest Challenges.
Every organization faces challenges that don't have obvious answers. Complex processes, changing customer expectations, emerging technologies, inefficient systems, or opportunities that haven't yet been fully explored.
Sometimes the problem isn't a lack of expertise. It's the need for a different perspective, new approaches, and the time to explore what's possible.
That's where the MID Industry Innovation Studio comes in.
Through Wichita State University's Master of Innovation Design (MID) program, we connect organizations with interdisciplinary teams of graduate students who bring diverse backgrounds, fresh thinking, and expertise in Design Thinking, Service Design, digital innovation, AI, and emerging technologies.
Our students don't simply brainstorm ideas. They research problems, engage stakeholders, map complex systems, challenge assumptions, develop prototypes, test potential solutions, and explore how new ideas can create measurable value.
You bring the challenge. We bring a different way of thinking about it.
What Kinds of Challenges Interest Us?
We're particularly interested in complex, ambiguous, or emerging problems where traditional approaches haven't produced the desired results.
Examples include:
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Complex Business Problems: Challenges involving multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, interconnected systems, or unclear solutions.
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Digital Products and Services: Exploring, designing, or improving digital products, platforms, applications, and services that create value for customers and organizations.
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Digital Transformation and AI Solutions: Identifying opportunities to apply AI, agentic systems, automation, and emerging technologies to improve operations, services, and decision-making.
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User and Customer Experience (UX/CX): Understanding customer needs, identifying friction points, improving experiences, and designing more intuitive products and services.
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Process Mapping and Improvement: Understanding how work actually happens, identifying inefficiencies, mapping workflows, and exploring opportunities to redesign processes.
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Human-Centered Challenges: Addressing problems involving people, behaviors, accessibility, communication, organizational culture, and the interaction between humans and technology.
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New Product and Service Innovation: Identifying unmet needs, exploring market opportunities, developing concepts, and testing potential solutions.
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Systems and Service Design: Examining how people, processes, technology, and organizations interact to deliver products and services.
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Future-Focused Innovation: Exploring how emerging technologies, changing markets, and evolving customer expectations may create new opportunities or disrupt existing business models.
If your challenge is difficult to define, crosses traditional boundaries, or requires thinking beyond the obvious, we'd like to hear about it.
How the MID Industry Innovation Studio Works
We make it straightforward for organizations to bring forward challenges and explore opportunities to work with MID.
Step 1: Submit Your Challenge
Tell us about the problem, opportunity, or situation your organization is facing.
You don't need to have the solution figured out. In fact, some of our most interesting projects begin with questions rather than clearly defined problems.
Step 2: Explore the Opportunity
We'll review your submission and, if there's a potential fit, schedule a conversation to better understand the challenge, the stakeholders involved, the desired outcomes, and any important constraints.
Together, we'll determine whether the opportunity aligns with MID's educational objectives, capabilities, and project schedule.
Step 3: Define the Project
If selected, we'll work with you to establish an appropriate project scope, expectations, timeline, and potential deliverables.
Depending on the challenge, projects may involve a focused Design Sprint, a multiweek innovation project, or a more comprehensive semester-long engagement.
Step 4: Investigate, Design, and Develop
MID students apply a combination of research, Design Thinking, Service Design, systems thinking, rapid experimentation, and emerging technologies to investigate the challenge.
Depending on the project, teams may conduct stakeholder interviews, observe existing processes, map customer journeys, develop digital prototypes, build AI-enabled solutions, or test new approaches.
Industry partners may participate through interviews, periodic feedback, access to relevant information, and project reviews.
Step 5: Present Insights and Solutions
At the conclusion of the project, teams present their findings, proposed solutions, and recommendations.
Deliverables may include research insights, process maps, customer journey maps, digital prototypes, proof-of-concept solutions, implementation recommendations, or other outcomes appropriate to the challenge.
The objective is to provide organizations with fresh perspectives and useful work they can evaluate, refine, or potentially advance.
Projects are educational collaborations. Selection, scope, deliverables, and timelines depend on course availability and project fit. The Studio does not guarantee a commercially ready solution or implementation.
What Makes MID Different?
We start with the problem, not the technology.
Our students come from different academic and professional backgrounds, bringing diverse perspectives to complex challenges.
They learn to understand people and systems before proposing solutions, question assumptions before developing products, and evaluate opportunities before investing in technology.
They combine human-centered design with AI, digital tools, rapid prototyping, and interdisciplinary collaboration to explore solutions that might not emerge from traditional approaches.
For industry partners, that means access to new perspectives, emerging talent, and structured exploration of challenges that deserve fresh thinking.
For students, it means working on meaningful problems with real stakeholders, real constraints, and the opportunity to create real value.
Have a Challenge Worth Exploring?
You don't need a formal project brief, a predetermined solution, or even a perfectly defined problem.
Start by telling us what you're trying to accomplish, what's getting in the way, or what opportunity you believe exists.
We'll help determine whether it's a good fit for the MID Industry Innovation Studio.
Bring Us Your Toughest Challenge.
Submitting a challenge begins a conversation and does not guarantee project selection. We'll review opportunities based on educational value, available resources, timing, and alignment with MID capabilities.