Posted: 17 February 2026
Each week, we ask one of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) students working with Historic Buildings & Places (HB&P) and Heritage Innovation Laboratory Oxford (HILO) to share a short update on their project work and their time in London. Their research and analysis will help inform the development of Future Lab.
By Yara Nabih
I’m Yara Nabih, a double major in computer science and data science. I am from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. On the team, I handle a majority of the business analysis of the different charities!
This past week, we had the honor of traveling to Oxford to attend the joint workshop between HB&P and HILO for the Future Lab project. Our group greatly enjoyed getting to go and work with other people in heritage to learn more about the issues facing the heritage sector. After the workshop, we went to the Natural History Museum in Oxford and the Pitt Rivers Museum, along with the Oxford Botanical Gardens!
Over the past week, I have created a business model canvas for HB&P. This has included reviewing the Annual Reports and CCEW Database. I have done an in-depth analysis and created graphs of the income and expenditures of HB&P over time. We have also been looking into membership trends. Our business model and membership trends have been supplemented by interviews with HB&P staff to give context on changes from year to year. I have also started to create the business model canvas of one of our case study charities. Next week, we are moving into interviews where I will be the notetaker. The notes I take are then used to produce the interview summaries, which can be found in our final report.
