Some Talents go on to drive change from within their organizations, applying new mindsets and tools to influence systems from the inside. Others focus on building community-led initiatives at a local level. And many choose to further develop their ideas into scalable solutions with the potential to create meaningful social impact. At UNLEASH, we know there are many diverse journeys to impact. As many as UNLEASH Talents! 

Recognizing this diversity of pathways, we launched the Innovation Hub to support Talents beyond their Innovation Lab experience, offering tailored resources aligned with the direction they choose to pursue.

Building on this foundation, we partnered with the Royal Academy of Engineering to take this support one step further through LIF Launchpad. As part of this collaboration, we introduced the Prototyping Program, a three-month journey designed to help Talents dive deeper into the UNLEASH Methodology, focusing on prototyping and testing, the following stages of the innovation process, to then move on to implement their solution.

“One key insight I gained from the Prototyping Program is the value of starting small and treating ideas early. I learned that iteration, feedback, and continuous improvement lead to more effective and user centered solutions.” – Sheen Milger Ochavo

The goal of the program is to build a prototype that can be tested in different settings, with real users, to ultimately launch their solution. During the process, Teams learnt the ins and outs of prototyping, understanding the importance of how prototypes evolve along the way, as testing leads to new insights that result in changes to the original design. Guided by Mentors, they approached the process with curiosity and openness to taking feedback from users that would help them move forward.

Team BKH (Bio-Kinetic Hybrid) Cacao Flux developed mobile cacao processing unit designed to improve fermentation and drying for smallholder farmers. Through prototyping, mapping out the current user-journey to they explored how the design could balance durability, affordability, and ease of transport, refining the solution based on real-world constraints.

As the program came to a close, Talents ended up with refined prototypes, new skills, insights, and the confidence to continue developing solutions that can create meaningful change.