SAVANNAH Ga. ()– The Savannah Harbor Innovation Partnership (S.H.I.P) encouraged college students, graduates, and industry experts to come together to address real-world challenges on Thursday.

S.H.I.P is an alliance committed to promoting innovation and investment in the Savannah region. They explained that this was the main impetus behind organizing their two-day workshop.

“We concentrated heavily on identifying the issue we aim to resolve,” said Rene Soto Calzadilla, a recent graduate of Georgia Southern. “We divided into several groups and used broad categories to pinpoint our problem, such as climate, healthcare, and education.”

The multiple groups were filled with people from different levels in their career. S.H.I.P’s executive director, Erem Latif said this allowed for the participance to practice their main lesson, design thinking.

“The whole concept of design thinking is to not to assume that you understand what a community needs, but to really identify what the problem is,” Latif said. “Then do some innovative thinking how to identify if it in fact that is a problem, and then what that solution would be.”

S.H.I.P told that this was their first event, but they are planning one in the fall, and they said they are excited to help drive forward innovative ideas specially for the coastal empire.