Spring 2020-21
Prof. B.K.Chakravarthy, Anil K Gupta
Author: Navjit Debnath
Pre-requisite courses: None
Pre-requisite skills: None
Course Content: History of Innovation – great innovations that have shaped mankind . Relation between Design and Innovation . Factors for Innovation – from problem framing to reframing . Culture of innovation – understanding needs, cross-connections, limits and challenges . Problem-solving strategies that lead to innovation . Collaborative methods to enable innovation
Motivation to take up the course: I wanted to start two minors - in Syscon and Industrial Design - and then complete whichever I liked better. This was the only instructional course offered by IDC School of Design in the online semester(the rest were Studio Projects), so I decided to take this one up.
Information about Projects/Assignments: There was an informal assignment to imbibe empathy, two regular assignments based on our majors and lecture discussions and a half-sem long final project. There was another assignment which was announced but dropped later. The project was the key part of the course and also an opportunity to learn new skills, apply old ones and explore everything in general(your surroundings, different areas in science and technology etc).
Quizzes/Midsem/Endsem papers Difficulty: 2/5
Overall Course Difficulty: 3/5
Evaluation Structure: A midsem, some assignments and final presentation of the project blog. The midsem is conducted on SAFE app with proctoring, based on all the instruction till midsem(which was most of the conceptual content of the course) and two NPTEL courses’ video lectures(which were based on two sepearate previous offerings of the same course). There is no endsem and you work on the project and maintaining its record in the blog in lieu of an endsem.
Lecture Style and Delivery: The lectures were extremely interesting and very conversational. There were frequent guest lectures, most of them with people from industry, including Chef Sanjeev Gupta. The project reviews were also very insightful, but the instructors were constrained by the huge number of students that had signed up for the two courses.
Attendance Policy: None
General funda: Make sure you join DE 414(6-credit) instead of DE 331(4-credit), especially if you wish to complete a minor from IDC School of Design. The content and everything is same for both, except you’re better guided through your project, earn two credits more and have a bit less leninet grading in DE 414. You just need to sit through each class attentively and submit the assignments on time. The midsem preparation required a bit of slogging but you still filled many gaps in your understanding through it. Overall, a fun course to take up, though I’d prefer a less crowded class size.
Should you do this course?: Anyone(sophomores or higher) Many people took this course as they were interested in starting up or interviewing for product management profiles, but it’s a good course to explore for people with absolutely any interest.
References: NPTEL courses - https://nptel.ac.in/courses/107/101/107101086/, https://nptel.ac.in/courses/107/101/107101088/