This course is meant for students in engineering and other disciplines who seek a challenging, interactive, team-based, and hands-on learning experience in entrepreneurship and technology. In this highly experiential course, students work in simulated start-up teams to create products or start-up ideas to address a broadly-defined need of an industry partner or social challenge.

AI and automation have significantly changed the way business is done. We are in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and have the opportunity to harness converging technologies to create an inclusive human-centered future. This course asks students to envision solutions that leverage tech to intentionally promote equitable economic mobility and to transform systems to benefit society. Students in the Designing Startups to Transform Society Challenge Lab will be immersed in an entrepreneurial journey to discover and develop disruptive business models for transforming society, addressing sustainability, and reimagining the future of work. From access to jobs, job skills, and upskilling, to innovative approaches to transforming education, climate, government, and businesses for the good of society, we need solutions that leverage technology to accelerate positive impact. Students will develop an understanding of the value and velocity of AI and disruptive technologies, understand the frameworks of ‘specialized’ vs ‘generalized’ intelligence; and explore ethical and inclusive innovation design. Students will explore complex societal challenges and invent startup solutions that leverage digital tech (e.g. data, ML, AI, IoT); prototype solutions; and explore customer ‘value’ models; all while gaining equal fluency in the cultural values and ethical principles that should ground and govern how these tools are designed and used.

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