Beating out tough competition, three public health undergraduates won first place in the Innovation Lab Pitch competition, hosted by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH). Their pitch “Thread Lightly,” an app aiming to combat overconsumption of clothes at the University of Maryland. The students were awarded a $1,500 prize after presenting their pitch in front of a panel of judges – all public health experts – on March 21.
Sophomores Maria Lukz, Sofia Hasrat and Damilola Folorunso came up with the idea of “Thread Lightly” after speaking with their friends on campus to brainstorm public health issues affecting students. The prototype, which is meant to function as a social media platform, will allow users to post their used clothing online and trade them with other users, free of charge.
“This award affirms the innovation and creativity of taking on a public health challenge. In this case, it was an environmental health challenge – the growing landfills and waste and materials that were super consumers,” said SPH Professor of the Practice Woodie Kessel, and the students’ mentor said. “It's thrilling and terrific that these three young people took this on and had an innovative and creative idea to deal with environmental health.”
Overconsumption of clothes and products is a common problem, especially amongst Generation Z, according to the students and their research. They believe that this issue is tied with mental health, an aspect that their pitch also included.
“The whole purpose of the app is to remove costs from the situation, because we're trying to promote people not purchasing more clothes when there's already so many clothes in circulation,” Lukz said. “Thread Lightly would help us rely on our community to help facilitate more sustainability, while creating more community in the process.”
The social nature of Thread Lightly in bringing communities together is meant to target lonesomeness among young adults. They were able to tie overconsumption with mental health by finding that people look for fulfillment in purchasing clothes when they feel loneliness, according to Folorunso.
“Winning was very surprising,” Lukz said. “We were just very excited, because we knew we were extremely passionate about our design. It was just very fulfilling to be recognized for that award.”
While the students have not yet launched the platform, they hope to utilize campus resources to help bring their vision to life.
“We were just very grateful for the opportunity,” Folorunso said. “We hope to bring Thread Lightly to life on campus and achieve our overall goal of reducing overconsumption, with the benefit of relying on community and improving mental health through that process,”
By: Sumaya Abdel-Motagaly
Editor’s note: Read more about the contest on ASPPH