City Labs Heads to Sleepy Hollow

The Westchester Innovation Network’s (WIN) City Labs initiative is partnering with the Village of Sleepy Hollow and Iona University’s Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation on a design-thinking project.

Rather than starting with a pre-defined assignment, the Iona students are defining the problem themselves after a briefing with the Mayor, Trustees and Village department heads. In class, students examined three themes identified by the village—modernizing building department processes and tools, signage and wayfinding, and downtown revitalization—then mapped stakeholders and discussed potential solution directions.

The students used design thinking, a human-centered methodology for creative problem-solving that focuses on understanding user needs to develop innovative, feasible, and sustainable solutions.

Through this process, they recognized that wayfinding/signage and downtown vacancy/disinvestment connect to issues of visibility, branding, visitor experience, and downtown activity, said Aakash Sapru, assistant professor of design thinking and innovation. They chose to merge these into a single focus and developed a problem statement to guide their work.

“There is a gap between Sleepy Hollow’s established brand identity and how that brand is promoted and experienced on the ground,” said Sapru. “This gap reduces visibility for local businesses, weakens the visitor experience, and limits the Village’s ability to bring its downtown to life as a destination, particularly outside of the Halloween season. How people navigate the area, discover businesses, and move through the Village are dimensions of this problem that need attention.”

WIN is part of the Business Council of Westchester’s (BCW) efforts to propel innovation as the underpinning for the future economic growth of Westchester. WIN’s City Labs spotlights a host municipality and teams that local government with individuals focused on identifying projects to assist in delivering immediate economic benefit to that community and its residents through innovation.

After Spring Break, students will begin on-the-ground research in Sleepy Hollow. The students will deliver their findings and recommendations in late April.

“I’m very eager to see what these students uncover through their research in Sleepy Hollow,” said BCW President and CEO Marsha Gordon. “We created City Labs precisely to give local municipalities access to fresh sets of eyes—talented students and faculty who can look at familiar challenges in new ways, ask different questions, and help identify creative, practical solutions that communities can consider or implement.”

“We are a global destination, and I have met visitors from the US as well as Sweden, the UK, Israel and Mexico who visit our Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Philipseburg Restoration, our Hudson Riverwalk and Old Dutch Church,” said Mayor Marjorie Hsu. “We are excited for Professor Sapru’s Iona students to share their design thinking and research on how the visitor experience can be elevated through intuitive wayfinding to discover our downtown shops, restaurants of all ethnicities along with the rich history, culture, nature of our Village.”

Sleepy Hollow is the ninth municipality to have participated in City Labs.