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Stories of Impact and Change
At the Blum Center for Developing Economies, we are driven by a shared mission: to innovate, inspire, and empower solutions that tackle global poverty. Explore our latest stories, ground-breaking research, and impactful programs that bridge the gap between theory and action.
Featured Article
News
We celebrate the life of Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, and send condolences to his family and friends. As President, he advanced solutions to global conflicts, championed human rights, and promoted development. After the White House, he continued serving the world through the Carter Center’s impactful initiatives.
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Big Ideas
News
As a senior program manager at Institute for the Future, a non-profit encouraging individuals and organizations to plan for the long-term, Lipsett looks at the world-to-come through a collaborative lens. But her dedication to innovative futures transcends her office. As a judge and mentor of the Big Ideas Contest, housed at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, Lipsett has become a key piece of the program and an exemplar for students who too hope to redesign how we approach forthcoming generations.
Development Engineering
Faculty
News
Cleveland Justis, professor of MDevEng’s “Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship,” fights these misconceptions by teaching how business strategy can be used as an instrument of social change.
Global Poverty & Practice
News
While the paths taken by the 60 newly minted GPP alumni to and through the minor differed greatly, they ultimately converged May 15 at Sutardja Dai Hall’s Banatao Auditorium following classes on poverty alleviation, a hands-on “practice experience” combining theory with practice, and deep reflection on what they learned. GPP’s 16th graduating class drew from 25 different majors and has joined an alumni community numbering over 1,000.
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Big Ideas
News
This Fall of 2023, Big Ideas is launching a new effort devoted specifically to climate change challenges in California. It will employ the time-tested Big Ideas@Berkeley Methodology to provide training and seed awards to very early-stage, student-led projects focused on climate change innovations in California.
Big Ideas
News
Learn more about the finalists and their upcoming presentations at the May 3 Grand Prize Pitch Day and Awards Celebration here.
Big Ideas
News
Farhiya Ali joined Blackbook University as a development intern in 2019 after Ibrahim Baldé, one of digital platform’s founders, reached out to the Black campus community seeking women in STEM to be a part of the organization, which equips Black students with relevant information, opportunities, and a network to connect with their peers.
Development Engineering
News
Tisatayane had been a teacher, a nurse, and an unsuccessful social entrepreneur. Now, he’s using development engineering to provide his fellow Malawians clean energy and an opportunity to free themselves from economic hardship.
Development Engineering
News
After 16 months, three semesters, 44 internships, 26 capstone projects, and countless hours in the classroom and out in the field, the inaugural cohort of UC Berkeley’s M.DevEng program walked across the stage of campus’ Sibley Auditorium in the Bechtel Engineering Center on Saturday to receive the country’s — if not the world’s — first master of development engineering degree. The 44-student Class of 2022 — pioneers of the burgeoning discipline that originated at Berkeley — will leave Blum Hall for careers in social impact, technology, and sustainability or to further their educational careers.
Big Ideas
News
Blackbook University is a digital platform that equips Black students with relevant information, opportunities, and a network to connect with their peers. It was launched to meet the needs of Black students on UC Berkeley’s campus — and to be a model that can be replicated across California, and eventually the nation.
Global Poverty & Practice
News
Global Poverty & Practice peer advisors use the experience they’ve gained in completing most of the minor to counsel their newer peers. Learn how four of them found and added to the GPP community and pursued tangible social impact in their summer practice experiences.
Development Engineering
Faculty
News
So in true development engineering fashion, Gadgil and colleague Temina Madon, part of the professional faculty at Haas School of Business, teamed up to publish Introduction to Development Engineering: A Frame with Applications from the Field — the discipline’s first textbook. It was published by Springer as an open access title on Sept. 9.
Health Tech CoLab
News
To facilitate and advance the work of like-minded labs across campus, Lab Links is a new program to sponsor presentations and discussions among labs working on topics with similar characteristics.
Development Engineering
News
Integrating her background with her education, Andono aims to center the environment when creating architecture, from its design process, construction, and operation, to create lasting, sustainable change.
Faculty
Economics Prof. Brad DeLong discusses his new book, Slouching Towards Utopia, and the promises and failures of the prosperity created during the “long twentieth century”.
Development Engineering
News
The 4th Medical Battalion, a unit of the U.S. Marine Corps made up of Marines and U.S. Navy personnel, wanted to up the training and preparation of medical and surgical teams that support Marines in the field. Marines’ health and safety are quite literally on the line.
Global Poverty & Practice
News
As the Campanile rang twice, indicating 2 p.m., students wearing blue and gold stoles over their formal attire found their seats below the iconic clock tower.
Big Ideas
News
In its annual Grand Prize Pitch Day and Awards Celebration on May 4, judges of the UC-wide Rudd Family Foundation Big Ideas Contest awarded the 2022 Grand Prize to the “SMART Cookies” project from UC Irvine, a community-based solution to iron-deficiency anemia. The Grand Prize award winner takes home $10,000 on top of any earlier awards earned in the past year.
Faculty
News
Daniel Fletcher, Blum Center Associate Director of Research, CellScope inventor, and Berkeley bioengineering faculty since 2002, has been named the new Faculty Director for the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley. The position will start on July 1.
Development Engineering
Faculty
News
Development Engineering Prof. Amy Pickering, Blum Center Distinguished Chair in Global Poverty and Practice at UC Berkeley, and Dr. Katya Cherukumilli, a postdoctoral scholar in Pickering’s lab, have won a $1.9 million award to increase access to clean and safe water in low-income urban communities around the world. The Open Philanthropy grant will go toward scaling up and deploying the Venturi, the in-line (passive) chlorinator device that was originally designed by local engineers in Bangladesh, Kenya, and the U.S.
Health Tech CoLab
News
Makesh Ramalingam of HCL Technologies explains the process of bringing devices to market and the unique challenges posed by individual countries’ regulatory standards at the latest talk in the Health Tech CoLab spring speaker series. The event will be held in person in Blum Hall 120 and streamed live online. Click for more details.
News
The 63rd Readiness Division kicked off the unit’s first National Security Innovation Network (NSIN) Bootcamp, hosted virtually in February 2022, to discuss improving services pertaining to Personnel, Readiness, Sustainment and Training. The workshop was led by two instructors from UC Berkeley in partnership with the Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit.