BEST CASE AWARD 2023

Hope and Grit: How Human-Centered Product Design Enhanced Student Mental Health

We are pleased to announce that "Hope and Grit: How Human-Centered Product Design Enhanced Student Mental Health" by Dave Rochlin is the winner of the 2023 Best Case Award.

The annual Best Case Award recognizes the case study published during the preceding year (2022) that has made the most important contribution to management education. This case was selected as a finalist based on its overall popularity and performance, and the final selection was made by the faculty and students of the Haas School of Business in April 2023. The winner will receive a cash prize of $2500.

Students are facing an unprecendented mental health crisis. This case focuses on two organizations in the tech-based health innovation space that formed a partnership. In this 'tech for good' project, Hopelab and Grit Digital Health used human centered product design to create an app. With the core needs of users at the forefront, the team designed an app to combat loneliness, a prevalent issue that led to other problems such as depression, anxiety, and risk of dropout. The team also applied systems thinking to this 'Wicked Problem' to address root causes, resulting in their Nod app that improved outcomes for college students.

This topic is timely and this case offers an a solution that can be replicated. As a country, we are seeing higher rates of mental health conditions that exceed the resources available to address these, especially among younger cohorts. This case uses a human centered design approach that was developed here at Haas to address a quality that is highly ranked among employers as a key contributor to success: grit.

—Anonymous Feedback

Former Award Winners

Theranos: How Did a $9 Billion Health Tech Startup End Up DOA?   (2022)
By Ernesto Dal Bó and Guo Xu

Enel X: Driving Digital Transformation in the Energy Sector   (2021)
By Henry W. Chesbrough

Patagonia: Closing the Loop on Packaging Pollution   (2020)
By Sara Beckman, Kate O'Neill, Seren Pendleton-Knoll, William Rosenzweig, and Robert Strand

Patagonia's Path to Carbon Neutrality by 2025   (2019)
By Daniel M. Kammen, Paul Hendricks, Seren Pendleton-Knoll, Vincent Stanley, and Robert Strand

Eliminating the Gender Pay Gap: Gap Inc. Leads the Way   (2018)
By Kellie McElhaney and Genevieve Smith

Patagonia: Driving Sustainable Innovation by Embracing Tensions   (2017)
By Dara O'Rourke and Robert Strand

Back to the Roots Ventures (BTTR)   (2016)
By Jorge Calderon and Nishant Bagadia

Castlight Health: Disrupting the Health Care Industry   (2015)
By Kristiana Raube

People Operations at Mozilla Corporation: Scaling a Peer-to-Peer Global Community   (2014)
By Homa Bahrami

Alphabet Energy   (2013)
By Beverly Alexander, Adam Boscoe, Mason Cabot, Philip Dawsey, Luc Emmanuel Barreau, and Russell Griffith