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Session 1: Problem Framing & Discovery in Innovation
Facilitated by Juli James (EQALL), with guest speakers Lakshmi Balachandra and Eli Velasquez.
Problem Framing is Essential
Participants should slow down, ask deeper questions, and clarify the real issues before jumping to solutions.
Collaboration and Openness
Sharing challenges and learning from diverse experiences builds a supportive learning environment.
Learning From Diverse Experiences
Insights from other fields and guest speakers can disrupt and enrich participants’ approaches.
Practical Tools
The “Five Whys” and breakout activities provided frameworks for immediate application.
Roadmap Development
The session set the stage for ongoing work, emphasizing clarity, stakeholder engagement, and adaptability.
1. The Importance of Problem Framing
Participants were guided to understand that clearly defining the problem is foundational to successful innovation. As Juli James stated, “If our problem is fuzzy, then the solutions that follow will be fuzzy. And clear problem framing will create clarity for our peers, for our partners, and for our potential funders.”
The session emphasized the “Five Whys” technique to dig beneath surface symptoms and uncover root causes. Juli explained, “When we problem frame, we have to ask questions like, what is really driving our challenge? Who is experiencing the pain points most directly, what might be true about the larger system that keeps this problem in place?”
The importance of problem framing:
Juli presented the concept and importance of problem framing, using her own media innovation experience as an example.
o “We started as former reporters who were really excited about just making new information in a new way, and we ended up thinking about a tool that pushed us not only to focus on what was possible to build, but what was actually viable and sustainable within this larger media ecosystem.”
2. Asking Better Questions
The cohort was encouraged to slow down, ask deeper questions, and clarify the real issues before jumping to solutions.
Breakout Activity:
- Groups organized by theme (moving money, building local capital ecosystems, strengthening the field).
- Each group discussed their projects and practiced deeper questioning.
3. Learning from Diverse Experiences
Guest speakers shared stories from entrepreneurship, venture capital, and ecosystem building, encouraging participants to learn from outside their immediate field.
Lakshmi Balachandra
Lakshmi’s segment powerfully reinforced the importance of problem framing by sharing her journey from entrepreneurship to venture capital and academia. She described how her work, especially in addressing the gender gap in venture funding, required a relentless focus on identifying the real problem—not just the symptoms.
- Lakshmi explained, “This is the number one reason businesses fail: if you don’t have a problem that needs solving.” She emphasized that founders often “fall in love with their idea, or their solution… without market validation, without understanding if this is a common problem.”
- She illustrated how her own teaching evolved: “I made AI required for the students, rather than me being worried that they were using it, I was actually forcing them to use it.” This shift was driven by her recognition that the real problem was not students using AI, but how to harness it for deeper learning and market validation.
- Lakshmi’s story about freshmen repeatedly inventing bedside tables highlighted the need to ask, “So what? Who cares?”—underscoring that problem framing means understanding whether a problem is widespread and worth solving.
Eli Velasquez
Eli’s presentation further drove home the critical role of problem framing in innovation ecosystems. He shared concrete examples from his work building innovation hubs and angel networks in diverse contexts.
- Eli described how initial failures stemmed from misidentifying the real challenges: “Absolutely epic failure. I can give you the case study on what not to do with that kind of initiative… don’t understand cultural context, trust, legalities, finance, all sorts of things.”
- He explained that success came from asking the right questions and engaging stakeholders to uncover the true barriers: “Try to identify where those ecosystem champions are… what problem are they trying to solve that you can then solve with them and for them, and then begin to collaborate on creating that ecosystem.”
- Eli’s advice was practical: “People always ask me, how many people does it take to change an ecosystem? About 10 to 12, right? If you get 10 to 12 on your side, you can… push the momentum over.” This highlighted that understanding the real problem means knowing who needs to be involved and what motivates them.
Both speakers reinforced that problem framing is not just a theoretical exercise—it is the foundation for sustainable solutions, stakeholder engagement, and successful innovation.
4. Wrap-Up
•Juli summarized: “The clearer the problem, the stronger our roadmap is going to be. Going deeper with ’why’ will reveal root causes, not just surface symptoms.”