Jada Davis

Class of 2025

University of Notre Dame
Industrial Design

Why did you choose ESTEEM?

I chose ESTEEM to fill in the gaps of my business knowledge and give me the tools to bring my ideas to life. In May 2024, I was walking for graduation with an industrial design degree, a lot of user-research experience, a mountain of sketches, and some 3D modeling skills. I was overflowing with product ideas that I thought could genuinely help people, yet had no knowledge on how to execute them past the design stage and actually get these solutions to consumers. ESTEEM seemed like the perfect place to learn the business skills I was missing and focus on fixing things that matter.

What is your capstone project?

Pawsperity is an innovative and transformational nonprofit organization that aims to break the cycle and lift families out of poverty. As the only nonprofit grooming school in the country, Pawsperity provides over 600 hours of customized soft skills support and job training in the fast-growing profession of dog grooming for their students. Since its inception, Pawsperity has helped 144 adults secure stable, well-paying jobs and continues to support their students long after graduation.

For this capstone project, the student will be focused on creating a national marketing plan of Pawsperity’s model that meets the growing demand for professional dog groomers, while articulating the mission and benefits of the Pawsperity program to social service organizations in different states across the country. Additionally, the student will be developing a packaged Pawsperity solution where any qualified social service nonprofit could license the program to continue the mission of breaking the cycle of poverty for families in their city. These goals will require the student to build a self-assessment system for qualified nonprofits interested in the Pawsperity program, to design a standardized virtual self-paced training plan for grooming students, to locate a secure online learning platform to house the Pawsperity curriculum, and establish a marketing strategy to reach qualified nonprofit organizations and key corporations in the pet industry.

What do you hope to do after ESTEEM?

After ESTEEM, I hope to enter the tech field as a user experience designer or be involved in the entire design process as a product manager. A major goal of mine is to utilize the entrepreneurial skills I gain in ESTEEM to start my own business one day. However, in any role, I am committed to creating accessible, human-centered products that bring a positive impact to the world.

What do you like to do in your free time?

In my free time, I love playing board games (especially Scrabble, I even have the travel edition), painting, and watching movies/tv shows. I’m a massive movie buff, having seen every movie ever made (probably), and I challenge anyone to come up with some that I have not seen before.