Take a step inside TD's Innovation Lab and you'd be hard pressed to know it's a bank. There are jeans not ties, sketches not numbers, and post-it notes litter the walls. In fact, they're ambitiously working to disrupt their own industry and completely reimagine the banking experience.

Located at the Communitech Hub in downtown Kitchener, this new arm of TD is applying design thinking to all their digital experiences. Everyone in the lab, whether they are a designer, developer, or project manager is tasked with obsessing over the customer. "Putting the customer at the centre of our process is the true path to exceptional experiences, innovation, and business value," says Ian McDonald, the lab's director. "The best solutions come from a deep understanding of customer problems. We talk to them early and often. The idea is that you don’t sit down and code for a day without showing it to someone.”

tdlab2And if growth is any indication of success, this team is knocking it out of the park. A few years ago they had a small team in one lab — now, they're up to fifteen co-ops and twelve full time employees across three labs! And they're not done, yet. They have plans to continue to add more passionate developers and designers to the team.

Interested in learning more? As an active member of the design community in the Waterloo Region, the TD team is always looking for an opportunity to engage with like minded folks. You can check out Ian's talk on Product, Organization and Market Transformation Through Design or stop by their non-booth (they're not really your typical booth people!) and talk about big ideas with a member of their team. And finally, if you're interested in taking a peek into one of the innovation labs, they're hosting a site visit as one of the Fluxible Meetups.

We are thrilled to have TD on board as a sponsor this year, and look forward to hearing much more from this treasury of design talent.