University Innovation Fellows
Fall 2023, Strategic Foresight Publication created by the NEXT Innovation ScholarsIn fall 2023 I had the incredible opportunity of joining UC’s third cohort of University Innovation Fellows. UIF is an international program hosted by Stanford’s d.school with the goal of training students to become leaders of design thinking in their university. My team and I which consisted of fellow students Max Kemats and Caroline Berger completed seven weeks of training over the course of the fall which culminated in a number of workshops. We presented to university leaders and developed our own ideation strategy. The acronym DASHIE, diversity and inclusion, academics, social, health, innovation, and entrepreneurship, is an alternative to the tradition STEEP analysis specifically for looking at the landscape of higher education. In the spring, we finally began our project: The NEXT New Deal.
Together we created a strategic outline for the future of NEXT Innovation Scholars to turn the program from what is today into a student-led consulting agency housed right in the University. In April we traveled to the Netherlands to attend the UIF meetup with other cohorts across the globe and participate in more workshops. Although our training period with UIF is over, our work on the NEXT New Deal is just beginning.
Although UIF doesn’t use that language, in many ways the goal of UIF is to turn students into global citizen scholars. The global aspect is obvious. We traveled halfway around the globe to meet up with students from Japan to Uruguay to India. The workshop we experienced at the meet up and the training we went through also had a major emphasis on responsible design and futuring, with the goal of teaching us to be responsible stewards of the world around us. Finally, we learned so much during our time with UIF, from new strategies for stakeholder interview to just how well we work as a team.
Together we created a strategic outline for the future of NEXT Innovation Scholars to turn the program from what is today into a student-led consulting agency housed right in the University. In April we traveled to the Netherlands to attend the UIF meetup with other cohorts across the globe and participate in more workshops. Although our training period with UIF is over, our work on the NEXT New Deal is just beginning.
Although UIF doesn’t use that language, in many ways the goal of UIF is to turn students into global citizen scholars. The global aspect is obvious. We traveled halfway around the globe to meet up with students from Japan to Uruguay to India. The workshop we experienced at the meet up and the training we went through also had a major emphasis on responsible design and futuring, with the goal of teaching us to be responsible stewards of the world around us. Finally, we learned so much during our time with UIF, from new strategies for stakeholder interview to just how well we work as a team.
