In early April, the first cohort of accepted students in the Blum Center’s inaugural Masters of Development Engineering program (M.DevEng) heard from award-winning faculty, social entrepreneurs, and student researchers and innovators, and also toured labs, Blum Hall, and iconic Berkeley landmarks – all virtually – in anticipation of reuniting in person on campus this fall.
This Spring, 2016, the Blum Center will be offering four new courses in the Global Poverty and Practice undergraduate minor, and the Development Engineering graduate
Of the nearly 200 pre-proposal applications that were received in November from students across every campus of the UC system, sixteen projects were selected from a diverse portfolio of innovations spanning a variety of social impact tracks, including global health, food and agriculture, financial inclusion, energy and resources, education and literacy, cities and communities, data and AI, and art and social change. UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Merced, UC San Diego, and UC San Francisco all have projects in the finals. Half of the team leads for the finalist projects identify as female. A quarter of the projects are led by undergrads.
World Development journal features the research of Evan Mills and the Blum-funded Lumina Project, which cultivates technologies and markets for affordable low-carbon lighting worldwide.
When Maria Artunduaga won a University of California award in 2017 for her team’s technology to manage pulmonary disease, she noted a critical factor in the victory:
