Innovation Engineering Corporate UpSkill Program

“I think this class is so awesome because it teaches the tools and concepts that are most commonly used in workplace teams. The vast majority of teams that I’ve applied to within the past year use the tools taught in this class. When I arrived at my data science internship this summer, I already knew how to use most of my team’s stack.” - Berkeley student from first program

Innovation Engineering Corporate UpSkill Program
Learn and Grow

Many top STEM schools have discovered that traditional engineering education has become too narrow and disconnected from the real world. Traditionally, education was designed to create narrow problem solvers,

However, the challenges of today require cannot be solved only with narrow solutions. Today’s problems require multi-dimensional trade-offs with technical and non-technical decisions as well as behaviors for innovation and leadership.

Higher education today still has gaps between education and practice which include:

  • the domain knowledge that is used in real life professional roles

  • industry connections that can be helpful for students to access

  • the behaviors and mindset for innovation

As a result students have been left disconnected from applications and real-world problems. Innovation Engineering is as a project course is designed to synthesize all the aspects of real world technology training. It also bridges the gap that universities don’t cover. The learning objective is to be able to apply technical skills in the real world. Students may use this course to build their CV, join a venture, and/or find their career advancement path.

Students may use the Innovation Engineering Course to:

  • Professionally up-skill during a 12 week immersive project sprint

  • Learn to develop innovation in technology solutions through project-based learning

  • Build an MVP or activate an innovation project

  • Make real life industry connections with mentors, entrepreneurs, and innovators.

  • Join the Innovation Engineering network of students and technology leaders

  • Innovate. Up-skill. Grow.

Audience

The course is intended for technical employees in firms. It is ideal for employees interested to upskill in echnical areas related to in data science, CS, engineering, web/mobile applications, and those with varying levels of coding and systems experience. Places will also be held for non-technical employees who would like to focus on user experience, customer experience, and social impact. Teams will be encouraged to assemble interdisciplinary skills. The course will benefit corporate teams and individuals interested in product development, innovation, entrepreneurship, product management, and applied research.

Each member of the team should have already be skilled in at least one of the following suggested pre-requisites:

  • Computer science programming courses in Java, Python, and other modern

  • Database programming such as SQL or other database platforms

  • Full stack development and/or cloud computing

  • Data Science and or Machine Language

  • Design, UIX, Web Front-End

  • Low code platforms including bubble.io, WIX, Wordpress, or others.

Students will be grouped into teams of 4-5 so that they will be able to learn from other team members. Teams will additionally include an experienced industry professional and/or entrepreneur/innovator for guidance from within the team itself. Connections formed with mentors and advisors can lead to broader understanding and new connections.

Instructors and teaching staff:

  • Ikhlaq Sidhu, Dean & Professor, IE School ofScience and Technology. Founding Director and Chief Scientist Emeritus at UC Berkeley

  • For Fall Session

    • Course coordinator: Not published

    • Collaborations and Mentors: Not Published

Project Aspects:

The open ended project is the key part of the course. The first half of the course is used to generate a story and low-tech demo for a real-world project. The remaining half is focused on an agile sprints which result in a demonstration of working project code by the end of the course.

The course also embeds the behaviors, mindset, and processes for creating just about anything new. Students will be expected to be able to articulate the impact of their project to broader audiences.

Grading:

The grading of the course is based on the the following factors which have points assigned within the outline of the course:

  • Assigned homework in including project updates

  • Participation for every attended class session

  • Final Project Demonstration including

    • Technical

    • Innovation Narrative

    • Design, UserI Interface, and User story

Reading:

The project development is based on the development framework of Innovation Engineering, which includes the story development, execution while learning, innovation behaviors, and leadership.

Course Outline

Week 1: Team Formation & Project Formulation

Week 1-Week 5 : Low Tech Demo

Week 6: First Sprint

Week 7-8: Mid-point - Midterm Presentations

Week 9: Second Sprint & Dry Runs

Week 10-12: Finals and Wrap Up