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DIF Project

Mitchel Zilbershteyn receives scholarship to explore digital innovation

Mitchel Zilbershteyn received the Persson-Barbour Endowed Scholarship in fall 2023 to explore digital innovation.

Mitchel is currently working on a Generative AI prototype using ChatGPT to create a guide for MIS students. The guide focuses on the Temple Association for Information Systems (AIS) and the Temple MIS PRO points program. It enables students to ask relevant questions such as how to earn PRO points and how to maximize their PRO point earning activities.

Previously Mitchel worked on a DIF project to envision use-cases for no-code metaverse development platform.

Kuaay – Digitally transforming peer-to-peer car buying and selling

Kuaay is a digital C2C car sales tool designed to facilitate transactions between private-party used car buyers and sellers. Founded by Yousif Memon (CST ’17), whose passion for cars has transformed into an innovative app, Kuaay is revolutionizing peer-to-peer automobile purchasing. Along with Keenan Hawekotte, Yousif won a competition for their pitch, which evolved into Kuaay – a platform that simplifies the car buying process for individuals.

DIF Role

Improve the UX design of the platform, implement E-notary services, and use APIs to integrate with shipping platforms.

Project Founders

Yousif Memon
Yousif Memon
College of Science
and Technology
(CST – 2017)
Keenan Hawekotte

DIF Consultant

Stephen Hullender
Stephen Hullender
Computer and Information sciences (CIS) student

Impact

“DIF support and platform architecture guidance has been invaluable in helping us move forward.” Yousif Memon

“Learning how a mobile app works and contributing to the app’s development improved my confidence. I was able to obtain a wide breadth of knowledge in software development and architecting a solution.” Stephen Hullender

Manoj Chacko managed this project for DIF

Agora World – Investigating the entrepreneurial potential of immersive applications

Agora World Inc. (Agora) provides no-code development tools and an environment for building immersive experiences and events. Ethan Berg aims to help people create new worlds—professional-quality immersive, 3D spaces and experiences—without any coding skills. Berg (FOX ’20) is the CEO and co-founder of Agora World Inc., which offers a drag-and-drop no-code design space for creating metaverse spaces.

Agoraworld Screenshot

DIF Role

Build three prototype use cases using Agora and its partners’ technology. The goal of these use cases is to leverage Agora and its partners’ technology to showcase interesting and innovative immersive experiences across different domains of application.

Project Founders

Ethan-Berg
Ethan Berg
(FOX ’2020)

DIF Consultant

Druvakumar Valugubelly
Druvakumar Valugubelly
Management Information Systems
Mitchel Zilbershteyn
Management Information Systems

DIF Awards

Agora World, Recipient of the 2021 Digital Innovation Award
Mitchel Zilbershteyn, Recipient of the Spring 2023 Stewart Family Endowed Scholarship

Research

Solon Moreira worked with Munir Mandviwalla on a manuscript titled “Exploring Entrepreneurship in the Metaverse: Design Requirements and Resources”. This manuscript has been accepted for presentation at the 18th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (DESRIST 2023).

Impact

“What used to take a team, investment, and months to create now can be created quickly with no code” Ethan Berg

“It was exciting for the Temple team to be part of something that will dramatically change and shape the world of business” Solon Moreira

“This project helped me better understand how software iteration and testing work” Druvakumar Valugubelly

“DIF provides a valuable connection to industry experts, and the opportunity to engage with professors on research.” Mitchel Zilbershteyn

Solon Moreira managed this project for DIF

Digitally transforming the tracking of pharmaceutical products at AmerisourceBergen

Every day, healthcare solutions leader AmerisourceBergen (a Fortune 10 company) ships pharmaceutical products and treatments to customers such as pharmacies and hospitals. Each shipment leaves from one of the company’s state-of-the-art distribution centers in totes. The totes are durable and designed to be reused — but there was currently no process in place to track what happened to the empty totes after initial use.

AmerisourceBergen leaders asked Temple University’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) to investigate the problem. A project team of Temple professors and students took up the challenge at IBIT’s endowed Digital Innovation Foundry (DIF). DIF is a hub for assessing, integrating, and prototyping digital technologies. For six months in 2022, the Temple team reviewed the literature, researched the problem, and prototyped alternate solutions considering both traditional and out-of-box ideas.

Among the millions of shipments daily, the team at Temple thought there could be an opportunity to consider an enhanced tracking methodology. The AB team, led by Pablo Mora and Dharmesh Patel, were open to ideas for improving tracking — but they asked the DIF team to keep in mind cost considerations, reliability, usability, integration with existing systems. In addition, the solution should take into account any change management and the impact it may have on processes for team members.

At DIF, students Russell Abernethy, a computer science major in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, and Eric Wolfe, a junior in the Mechanical Engineering Department, assessed software, wireless technology, and networking. They were guided by two faculty members, Jeremy Shafer, Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems, and Yan Wang, Assistant Professor in Computer and Information Sciences.

Abernethy and Wang researched location sensitive IOT (Internet of Things) devices. Shafer and Wolfe researched platforms to interface with the IOT devices, integrate the IOT generated data, and provide a tracking dashboard. Their proposed digital solution prototype is an innovative mix of Bluetooth IOT tags, and single board tiny low-cost computers integrated into an open-source platform. The team assessed the feasibility of their prototype by turning their world into a simulated supply chain. Abernethy rode his bike around campus with the sensors. Shafer used the family van to drive them around in a cardboard box.

Their final presentation and solution earned praise for its visual and analytics capabilities from AmerisourceBergen during an October presentation at their headquarters in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, which also included AmerisourceBergen team members Dharmesh Patel, Pablo Mora, Venkat Nadimuthu, and Tanmay Bandyopadhyay. Patel, Mora, and Nadimuthu had regularly met with the Temple team to provide a sounding board and feedback since the start of the project.

“Their research and the solution were great,” said Bandyopadhyay. “They thought through the design end to end.” He says his colleagues are keen to explore how to take the idea further. The Temple students are just as optimistic. Wolfe says AmerisourceBergen’s “positive response was very encouraging.” And Abernethy notes that collaboration was key. “Both sides were very willing to share ideas and critiques,” he says.

Through the Digital Innovation Foundry, students and faculty connect to industry to engage in real-world problem-solving, research, and experimentation. IBIT industry partners get access to Temple’s research and expertise.

Bandyopadhyay sees the benefits. “The work was relevant and useful. We are often heads down into our day-to-day operations, and so greatly benefited from a new perspective that our partnership with the Digital Innovation Foundry brought” he says, noting that the DIF team brought fresh perspective to the tote tracking question. “The professors are in touch with the latest and the greatest. The students are smart, and they can produce wonders in short time.”

Learn more about DIF at: https://ibit.temple.edu/DIF

Investigating the entrepreneurial potential of immersive applications

Ethan Berg wants to help people build new worlds — professional-quality immersive, 3D spaces and experiences — without any coding skills. Berg (FOX ’20) is the CEO and co-founder of the startup Agora World Inc which offers a drag and drop no-code design space to create spaces for the metaverse.

Berg and Agora won Temple’s Idea Competition in 2021 as well as the Digital Innovation Award from the Digital Innovation Foundry (DIF), which included access to talent and resources. Today, Agora’s no-code platform accommodates users of all experience levels, from professional designers to those with minimal design background, making it an accessible solution for creating professional-quality 3D content and immersive social experiences,” Berg says. “What used to take a team, investment, and months to create now can be created quickly with no code.”   Berg quickly saw the value of DIF talent and resources, to “study this space and get a better understanding of where we’re headed and where we can go.”

Over six months in 2022, the DIF team of Druvakumar Valugubelly (FOX MIS ’22) and Mitchel Zilbershteyn (FOX MIS ’24) supervised by Solon Moreira, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship applied Agora’s platform to explore commercial metaverse applications.

Moreira’s DIF team applied design science research to prototype solutions for three different business problems. The goal was to investigate applications with entrepreneurial potential that are technically and practically feasible for companies. And identify the requirements and resources that companies will need to enact an entrepreneurial metaverse strategy.

The team built three prototype spaces a mall, a neighborhood, and an outdoor concert venue. Visitors to these spaces might shop, go house hunting, or attend a music festival. Moreira explains that a real estate agent could use the neighborhood space to showcase homes in a planned development. Before the foundation of a new house is even poured, a potential buyer could look at the view from “their” balcony. “It was exciting for the Temple team to be part of something that will dramatically change and shape the world of business,” Moreira says.

The team presented Berg with valuable feedback, and he was impressed by the “amazing” spaces they built. Valugubelly says he enjoyed the chance to work with LiDAR 3D scanning for the Agora project. “This project helped me better understand how software iteration and testing work,” he adds. Zilbershteyn, says that DIF provides “a valuable connection to industry experts, and the opportunity to engage with professors on research.” “As we continue to evolve, collaborating with the DIF team has provided valuable insights, helping us refine our platform and better serve the diverse needs of our users,” Berg says.

The DIF project also generated new research. Moreira worked with Executive Director and Professor Munir Mandviwalla on a manuscript – “Exploring Entrepreneurship in the Metaverse: Design Requirements and Resources” – which has been accepted at the 18th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (DESRIST 2023). Going forward, DIF is collaborating with Agora on additional research and is hosting an integrated industry-research workshop on the business application of metaverses, AR, VR, MR, and digital twins.

The mission of DIF, part of the Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT), is to generate innovation by assessing, integrating, and prototyping digital technologies in collaboration with industry, startups, faculty, and students. See: https://ibit.temple.edu/DIF

Learn more about Agora at: https://agoravr.world/

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