Ignitus | Rohan Pal

2019

Ignitus

Connecting research talent to relevant professional opportunities

Ignitus is a non-profit organization to help students and professionals get handpicked top-quality global research and industrial internships. Initially, it started with a growing community on Slack.

During my tenure with Ignitus, I was given the responsibility to design the mobile user experience, which would help students focus on their goals and help them find relevant opportunities while connecting them with the right people.

Collaborators
Paarmita Bhargavi

The Problem
Help students find goal-oriented research opportunities and internships

Lack of a professional network dedicated to finding research opportunities

Difficult to find opportunities that are relevant to research focus

Early career students have little guidance on approaching senior professors

Problem deep dive

Difficult to communicate research skills gained or desired in future opportunities

Students in universities find it difficult to understand what are the additional skills they need within their subject area because of the highly academic language used by senior researchers and the vast research content in each area.

Lack of clarity on pathways for students interested in pursing a career in research

Students in universities (especially freshmen and sophomores) do not have guidance on what professors and senior researchers are looking for in students to participate in their research work. This leads to a long duration for students to start pursuing their research interests.

Empathy mapping

Gathering insights, understanding feelings

USER RESEARCH

Personas showcasing poor internship experiences in research and challenges in finding opportunities

The Solution

A networking focused platform for researchers connecting talent to opportunities

Ignitus eliminates the unknowns. Instead of spending hours finding the right people to reach out and sending cold messages, this platform provides specific guided content for new talent to find the most relevant opportunities.

User Profile for Researchers

User profiles help researchers provide detailed information on their research interests and goals for finding new opportunities.

The Looking For section provides a clear insight on the why the person is on Ignitus. This is not another social network - but rather a place to work towards your goals in pursuing research as a professional.

The Research Fields section highlights research areas when interests of the user looking at the profile match with the interests of the person whose profile it is.

A place to find oppotunities

Ignitus provides a job search and application platform that goes beyond finding and applying. Students and early-career researchers can follow a step-by-step guidance on what to do before and after applying to maximize their chances of landing a relavant research position.

Reflection

Learnings and takeaways

This project being my first internship experience helped me learn invaluable skills much while collaborating with other designers and managers.

While translating the web to mobile experience, I learned that consistency should not challenge functionality and sometimes, we need to introduce new ways interfaces to deliver the right experience.

If I were to do more on this project, I would improve the interface and love to create a design system through A/B testing. It was amazing to work on an actual product while understanding and eliminating the problems that users told me. I am excited to see how Ignitus evolves and impacts the so many people involved.

ROHAN PAL

Work, Play, Info