Graduate class at the d.schooL

Innovating Large-Scale, Sustainable Transformations


Background 

This Stanford graduate-level course is taught at the Stanford Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) and introduces students to the theory and application of the Large-Scale Transformation Process. The class combines theory, process-mindedness, specific tool-sets, and hands-on practice.

 

This Stanford course is an advanced project-based innovation class and is meant to equip students both from a methodology and theory perspective to launch an initiative that is designed to scale fast. Students are placed in multi-disciplinary teams and charged with designing sustainable interventions for large-scale, real-world challenges. 


As part of the class, students work with an industry partner on a real world challenge for the duration of the quarter, and each of the assignments leads them towards making tangible initiatives. Projects have ranged from planning the waste and energy future for a new town, to designing large-scale distributed PV electrification for rural India. 

 

The class is offered in the spring so students who wish to keep working on their projects, can continue to do so in the summer.

 

 

Impact GoalS 

The primary objective of the course is to create a cadre of young leaders who see themselves as agents of change and are armed with a process to create rapid transformations in “wicked” problems in any domain.  Graduate students taking the course have the chance to: 


1. Innovate and launch a Large-Scale Sustainable Transformation

2. Learn a process for creating integrated, large-scale interventions (“process mindedness”)

3. Practice trans-disciplinary teamwork

4. Learn a new type of leadership and gain creative confidence

5. Practice impact-mindedness


In addition, industry and external partners benefit from the insights and thinking of talented young Stanford graduates, who dedicate a full academic quarter to real-world projects.  

 

Teaching Team 

The class is co-taught by a multidisciplinary group of Stanford instructors, including Banny Banerjee, Anja Nabergoj and Baba Shiv (Stanford Graduate School of Business).  Class advisors have ranged from the CEO of Nike.org to the Director of the Institute of the Future.