Fran Romano
Designer and Engineer
I&E 390S: Innovating for Social Impact
I&E390 is an elective course that has students dive into the social impacts of corporations, policy, and influential individuals. The course is taught by Danielle Zapotoczny whose enthusiasm make the class an exciting learning environment. Students are pushed to collaborate and explore various perspectives.
Final project: Video interviewing Duke students on innovation and bright ideas
Reflection
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For the certificate program, I chose to go down the technology and design pathway. I chose to take Innovating for Social Impact with Danielle Zapotoczny because this course is a great elective for my specific pathway. The class pushed me to think outside the box and explore things I took for granted.
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I find myself constantly brainstorming innovative products and hardware technologies. This class was an intriguing way of restructuring my framework of innovation. Instead of innovating tangible ideas, the course dove into innovative policy and campaigns. We learned the value of impact orientated advertisements and company movements. We explored companies and individuals like Nike, Apple, and Jeff Bezos as well as governments and institutions like the UN. It was society to learn about the extent of impact the companies and certain individuals have on society. More specifically, we dove into the UN's climate summit and various corporate climate reports. These reports are valuable to track progress, but also to show everyone the actual carbon footprint that companies have and they ways they are trying to mitigate them. The class taught me to dive deeper into the policies of organizations and to think critically of the kind fo impact such policies will have on the communities and world around them.