Rendering of the new Jacobs Institute that will be completed in Fall 2015
Introduction
Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, recently donated $20 million to build the new Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation at UC Berkeley. Jacobs' goal is to provide engineering students with encouragement to start their own ventures and pursue entrepreneurial aspirations. He wants Berkeley to become a frontrunner for breakthrough technologies and successful startups.
Problem
Paul Jacobs' donation alone will not create the success that he envisions. Many educational paradigms must be changed to encourage students to think creatively, take risks, and push the boundaries of their current curriculum. To help change these paradigms, the school has called on a number of students who are in the design realm to express their needs and help build the curriculum that will best serve the students' needs.
My team, during this process, is focusing on the entrepreneurial aspect of the Jacobs Institute. While Berkeley is a leading research institution, much of this research doesn't move past publication. We hope to enact a system that better facilitates the formation of interdisciplinary teams to develop research and go to market with a commercial techonology.
Process
Professor & Researcher Needs
In order to pair up students with projects, we have to get professors on board. For professors, many only want to get published while others have more entrpreneurial aspirations. In order to get professors onboard, we need to create a platform that can showcase the research, which would incentivize the professors to join the cause.
Much research is fairly homogenous in terms of academic team diversity. In order to help drive commercialization, we needed to determine the key aspects that professors are missing from their team that would allow their research to become a marketable product.
Student Needs
Many students are unaware of the various fields of design until late into their curriculum. In addition, students have a hard time working on hands-on projects that entail more than data analysis.
Students need a simple platform where they can view on campus projects (research, startups, etc.) and gather into interdisciplinary teams to complete a meaningful project. Students also need stimulating work that exercises their creative capacity.
Moving Forward
By May, my team will partner with a current research project to better assess the missing links that students can fill to help commercial projects come to fruition. This will work hand in hand with a curriculum framework for the Jacobs Institute and a platform where students can explore the projects culminating in Berkeley.
A Balsamiq mockup of a basic curriculum framework for the Jacobs Institute
