MIT India Initiative 2020 : Mentors From Harvard & MIT Address The Local Challenges Of India
The MIT India Initiative is a not-for-profit effort of students and alumni from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to strive to bring about creative solutions to pressing problems in novel, challenging contexts through technology and design. This initiative has been brought into fruition in the form of a workshop where mentors from multiple departments of MIT and Harvard will work with talented participants chosen from all across India to design solutions.
The workshop this year is to be held from 21-25 January, 2020 at Welingkar Institute of Management, Matunga, Mumbai. This is the first version of the MIT India Initiative Workshop series assimilating the drive of multiple departments from MIT and Harvard to address the local challenges of India. The workshop will facilitate participants to work on solutions that cut across boundaries of cultures, disciplines, and institutions. MIT and Harvard mentors (with guidance from workshop leadership) will work in teams on problems that relate to their expertise for a week with Indian students, direct them to potential solutions, and run sessions that challenge workshop students to think outside the box.
This is the first version of MIT India Initiative innovation workshop series assimilating the drive of multiple departments from MIT and Harvard to address local challenges of India. This initiative has been greatly inspired from several other initiatives of the past. MIT India Initiative acknowledges the collective effort of MIT, and is grateful for the past work done by MIT alumni and other MIT wide groups including MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design, MIT Media Lab India Initiative, MIT Connected Learning Initiative, MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, MIT D-Lab India, and MIT J-Pal South Asia group.
The tracks covered by the workshop this year include Investigative Journalism, Community-based Health Solutions, Housing and Energy, Environmental Resilience, Fintech for Social Good, Re-Imagining Education, Public Spaces, Mobility, Healthcare, and Social Empowerment through Music.
The students go through a design studio and technology exposure to build projects relevant to their themes in a time frame of 5 days. The participants go through a process of problem identification with storyboarding, ideating and brainstorming sessions, rapid prototyping, and product development. The last day of the workshop culminates in a public open-house with thousands of students, colleges and professionals coming from across the host city to view cutting edge solutions along with press and media to cover the event. The event ends with a networking session bringing in top industry executives, academicians, MIT and Harvard faculty and researchers. The workshop is a tremendous learning and experimentation ground for MIT and Harvard researchers as well as for the young participants.
To add to that, this session is a platform for all of MIT India Initiative’s community partners and visitors to engage with all the participants at an individual level and see the final demo of the solutions and the prototypes prepared by them. Visitors can interact with participants of different tracks based on their preferences, as well as explore their synergies. The networking session would also give space to representatives of different organizations to interact with each other.
You can register for their open house session here. (Deadline 23rd January, 2020)
Dates : 21 - 25 January
Venue : Welingkar Institute of Management, Matunga, Mumbai
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