Southeast Information Exchange
Dr. Carolyn Gery and Gail RichardsResearch Summary
This project brings UCCS and Southeast Colorado Springs together to strengthen community and economic resilience through a co-designed information and resource exchange. Led collaboratively by Dr. Carolyn Gery and Gail Richards, the initiative combines social and commercial innovation to better understand the assets, needs, relationships, and resources that help residents, entrepreneurs, organizations, and local businesses thrive.
Using human-centered design, systems thinking, and layered asset mapping, the team will work directly with residents, business owners, community leaders, students, and other stakeholders to identify existing resources and uncover gaps that limit access or growth. Those insights will inform the development of a community-designed knowledge hub that connects needs with assets while strengthening local information literacy, entrepreneurship, and community capacity.
The Problem: Communities can have significant talent, knowledge, organizations, and entrepreneurial energy while still facing barriers to finding and accessing the resources needed to thrive. In Southeast Colorado Springs, information about business development, social services, health, cultural resources, and community support can be dispersed across different organizations and networks. Without a clear understanding of both community needs and existing assets, valuable resources and opportunities can remain disconnected from the people and businesses that could benefit from them.
The Innovation: Rather than bringing a predetermined solution into the community, this project starts by designing with Southeast Colorado Springs. The team will combine community-engaged research with layered asset mapping to understand social and economic needs alongside the resources already available to address them. Using a design thinking process of evaluating, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing, community stakeholders and UCCS collaborators will co-create an information exchange that reflects local knowledge, strengthens connections, and can evolve alongside the community.
Community and Industry Impact
The project strengthens Southeast Colorado Springs by starting with the knowledge and lived experience of the people who already call it home. Residents, entrepreneurs, business owners, community organizations, and local leaders will help identify needs, map existing assets, and shape solutions. Connecting these resources more intentionally can strengthen grassroots entrepreneurship, improve access to community supports, and create greater social and economic opportunity while building on the community's existing strengths.
Student Engagement and Mentorship
UCCS students will work alongside faculty, community leaders, entrepreneurs, and local organizations on tangible challenges with real community consequences. Through research, interviews, asset mapping, design thinking, prototyping, and testing, students will gain applied experience while learning how social and commercial innovation intersect. Mentorship from faculty and community "builders" allows students to see the impact of their work while developing skills in collaboration, entrepreneurship, systems thinking, and community-engaged problem solving.
Increasing UCCS Visibility
The initiative creates a stronger bridge between UCCS and Southeast Colorado Springs by bringing community expertise onto campus while extending university resources into the community. The project demonstrates a model of higher education as an active partner in locally driven innovation, positioning UCCS and C3 Innovation as conveners that can connect interdisciplinary expertise, students, entrepreneurs, and community leaders around shared challenges.
Timeline
DELIVERABLES
- Community needs and asset inventory
- Inventory of local businesses and entrepreneurial resources
- Economic, cultural, social, and community landscape research
- Interviews with residents, entrepreneurs, business owners, and community leaders
- Community and business gap analysis
- Prototype community information and knowledge exchange
- Replicable framework for adapting the model to other communities
Phase 1
Evaluate & Listen
- Inventory businesses, organizations, programs, and community resources.
- Research the area's economic, cultural, social, and community landscape.
- Conduct interviews with residents, business owners, entrepreneurs, and community leaders.
Phase 2
Define
- Analyze community and business research.
- Conduct an objective gap analysis.
- Identify priority challenges affecting economic and community resilience.
- Develop community-informed problem statements.
- Define requirements for the information exchange and asset-mapping system.
Phase 3
Ideate & Map
- Map community assets and resources against identified needs.
- Identify opportunities to strengthen connections between organizations, businesses, residents, and entrepreneurs.
- Engage students and stakeholders in developing potential solutions.
- Design the structure and user experience of the community information exchange.
Phase 4
Prototype
- Develop an initial knowledge-base and asset-mapping experience.
- Integrate the social resilience and economic resilience components into a shared platform.
- Engage community stakeholders in reviewing the prototype.
- Test how effectively users can discover and navigate relevant resources.
Meet the Innovators
Professional Bio: Carolyn Gery
Dr. Carolyn Gery brings expertise in design, innovation, systems thinking, education, public health, and community systems to her work at UCCS. Her approach to innovation centers on building resilient communities by connecting individual wellbeing with broader social and community conditions. She emphasizes community-engaged design that recognizes residents as experts in their own experiences and prioritizes building solutions with communities rather than for them.
Through the UCCS Bachelor of Innovation program, Dr. Gery works across Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, Teams, and related coursework, collaborating closely with students and community partners on applied challenges. Her community connections span mental health, public health, grassroots organizations, and local government. Within this project, she brings the social and community resilience perspective, helping connect local knowledge, community resources, and innovative approaches to support sustainable change.
Professional Bio: Gail Richards
Gail Richards brings expertise in entrepreneurship, commercial innovation, experiential education, and community-engaged business development to UCCS. Her work focuses on connecting students and faculty with community stakeholders through hands-on experiences that strengthen learning while addressing real economic and community challenges. Her approach recognizes that thriving communities depend on the interconnection between economic opportunity, social wellbeing, and quality of life.
Richards has collaborated with Dr. Gery for more than five years teaching social and commercial innovation within the UCCS Bachelor of Innovation program. Her work with student teams has included ongoing engagement with R.I.S.E. Southeast and Southeast Colorado Springs. Within this initiative, Richards leads the economic resilience perspective, focusing on understanding what local businesses need to establish roots, stabilize, and grow while developing stronger connections among entrepreneurs, business resources, mentors, and community assets.