Addressing the health impacts of loneliness

Enter Industry Innovation Project – a final year subject for students studying a Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation (BCII).

In this 12-week subject, students are asked to tackle a complex real-world challenge set to them by industry, community, or government organisations.

Given the chance to partner with BCII students in this subject, Medibank were thrilled to discover how the students used transdisciplinary methodologies to explore, reframe and prototype concepts to address loneliness.

“Addressing the impact of loneliness is a major priority for Medibank. We wanted to work with BCII students because UTS is an important health partner with Medibank, and we wanted to ensure we understood this issue from the student perspective,” said Jason Elias, head of partnerships and sales at Medibank.

The team that worked on Medibank’s brief was made up of six undergraduate students who were studying a BCII degree in combination with an additional degree in either communication, science, design or business.

Medibank found this diversity in the student’s academic disciplines fostered immense value in how the team was able to collaborate on the problem posed.

“The diverse range of students’ majors and backgrounds have helped them to bring a broader view and approach to the problem statement, and we can see how each of them applied their skills and knowledge to the project along the way,” said Elias.

These students are amazing and the Medibank team were impressed by their professionalism and commitment to learn, take on constructive feedback and grow.

The learning is not just for them, but also for us who participate as well. It is a real highlight to support the professional growth of these students.

– Jason Elias, head of partnerships and sales at Medibank

In addition to promoting tandem learning for both the students and Medibank, both parties were also able to experience deep collaboration in action.

“Going into this subject, I thought the role of the BCII students was to get industry experience by simply working for an industry partner,” said one of the students, studying BCII and communications.

“However, this subject is not about working for an industry partner. It's about working with an industry partner.

“I did not recognise how collaborative it would be and how generous our industry partner would be in ensuring it was a valuable experience for all parties.”

Since the conclusion of the subject, Medibank has been looking to work with the students to see what the implementation of their interventions might look like in practice.  

“The results are helping inform our student health engagement and support programs and we have confidence that the BCII students have made a professional and wonderful contribution," said Elias.

The success comes after the students were asked by senior executives to present their project to internal stakeholders at Medibank.

One of the students, studying BCII and science, said her team had exceptional mentors from Medibank who taught the students how to plan out their projects and maintain communication channels with clients.

“These are skills that can be transferred into my professional career as well as used in future BCII projects,” she said.

Since their engagement with TD School, Medibank is continuing to explore issues of loneliness based on some of the insights provided by the BCII student team.

They also recently launched a podcast to talk about loneliness with some of Australia’s best creative talents, to normalise the experience of these themes in popular culture.

Thanks to the Medibank Private team who engaged with the students for their Industry Innovation Project.

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