COURSE NUMBER: MBA 292N.3

 

COURSE TITLE: Technology Breakthroughs for Combating Global Poverty

 

UNITS OF CREDIT: 2

 

INSTRUCTOR: Shashi Buluswar

 

E-MAIL ADDRESS: buluswar@haas.berkeley.edu

 

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: 

 

PREREQUISITE(S): None

 

CLASS FORMAT (Will there be lectures, cases, or a mixture?): Mix of lectures & cases

 

REQUIRED READINGS:  “50 most critical technological breakthroughs required for global development”

 

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Project (90%) and class participation (10%)

 

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

Most technology innovations to combat global poverty, fail to live up to their promise, media hype.   Even many true technological breakthroughs fail to reach sustainable scale.  Yet, every year dozens of seemingly innovative technologies and technology-related businesses emerge on the horizon.  All of them promise large-scale impact; many of them are hyped up in the media; some receive large amounts of funding; a few win major awards.

Why don’t innovative technologies succeed more often? 

·         They are not based on a deep understanding of the issues, and of what specific technological breakthroughs are really required to achieve large-scale impact. “Cool” technologies and social businesses can become hammers looking for nails, and their creators fall victim to excessive positivity bias.

·      A compelling narrative usually takes the place of rigorous due diligence, because most funders lack the technical and market expertise to really separate good investments from bad ones.

·      Most emerging markets are still very tough to build social businesses in, and even a very promising innovation—with substantial funding and a robust business plan—is sometimes not enough.

 

In the above context, this course prepares aspiring innovators, social entrepreneurs, and social impact investors to understand what it takes to achieve large-scale social change through technology.  In this course, students will:

  1. Gain a deep understanding of the issues related to poverty: The course examines, in depth, the underlying social, technical and market-based challenges to overcoming the full range of issues related to global poverty: health, agricultural development, education, human rights and governance, access to water, empowerment and inclusion of women, access to energy, resilience against environmental and climate change, financial inclusion, digital inclusion, and quality-of-life in the household.
  2. Learn from the most interesting recent and “live” case studies of social ventures based on technological innovations, and understand why they succeed or failed.
  3. Meet inventors and social entrepreneurs who can share their experience on what has (or has not) worked.
  4. Identify a promising technology and develop the business plan to launch a venture (for-profit or non-profit).   If interested, they can take this plan to funders and social venture competitions.

The course will be taught by Dr. Shashi Buluswar, who heads the Institute for Transformative Technologies (ITT).  ITT’s mission is to discover, develop and deploy the next generation of breakthrough technologies to combat global poverty.  The material is based on the recently published study “The 50 most critical science and technology breakthroughs required for sustainable global development”, which was written by Dr. Buluswar and his colleagues at ITT.

 

 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Shashi Buluswar is the CEO of the Institute for Transformative Technologies (ITT). ITT aims to bring to life, breakthrough technological solutions for addressing global poverty and related social ills through advanced research, user-centric product engineering, innovative business models, and a global network of partnerships. ITT works on range of topics including water security, energy, and health. ITT recently released a groundbreaking study to identify the “50 most important technology breakthroughs required to combat global poverty”.

 

Prior to ITT, Shashi was a Partner at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, a mission-driven strategy consulting firm which serves international NGOs, foundations, governments, social entrepreneurs, and UN. Prior to joining Dalberg, he was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company and a Visiting Professor at Northwestern University.  He holds a PhD from the University of Massachusetts in Robotics, and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.  Beyond his professional interests, Shashi spent a decade competing on the Indian national rowing team, and made a critically acclaimed documentary film about the India-Pakistan conflict and “cricket diplomacy”. Shashi was born and raised in India.