Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) is a Chicago-based innovation and workforce development organization that connects students, professionals, and industry partners through technology and research initiatives. Their mentorship programs play a key role in supporting emerging talent. At the time, DPI relied on a third-party platform that lacked flexibility and did not align with their internal workflows. Our team was tasked with designing and building Mente as a custom solution to better support communication, engagement, and long-term mentorship growth.

The system made it difficult for mentors to track mentee progress and for mentees to stay engaged and accountable to their goals. Communication felt fragmented, and administrators lacked clear visibility into program outcomes. This limited DPI's ability to measure impact and support structured growth, highlighting the need for a more flexible and scalable solution.

We designed Mente to address the specific needs of DPI's community — a purpose-built platform that puts mentees in control of discovering the right mentors through intuitive browsing and filtering, streamlines the connection process with clear request flows, and keeps all communication centralized in one place. By designing specifically for DPI's program structure rather than adopting a generic tool, we created an experience that feels personal, efficient, and aligned with how mentorship actually works in their ecosystem.

Mentees (Primary): DPI students and apprentices seeking guidance in their tech careers and academic journey. They need to quickly find mentors with relevant expertise, understand mentor availability before reaching out, and communicate easily throughout the program. Ranging from early-career developers to career transitioners, they value clarity and low-friction processes.

Mentors (Secondary): Industry professionals and experienced DPI alumni volunteering their time. They want control over their mentorship capacity, context about mentees before committing, and a simple way to manage multiple mentorship relationships. They're motivated to give back but need tools that respect their limited time.

Although the platform was not launched due to long-term maintenance and operational cost considerations, the project helped DPI explore the value of a custom internal solution. The work clarified key user needs, highlighted gaps in the existing third-party platform, and provided a strong foundation for future mentorship initiatives and product decisions.

This project taught me that successful products require not only strong design and engineering, but also sustainable operational support. I gained experience balancing user needs, stakeholder goals, and technical feasibility while working in a cross-functional Agile team. Moving forward, I would focus earlier on validating long-term scalability, maintenance costs, and resource planning alongside design and development.