Designing Collaborative Development

  • NINT 5305 - Designing Collaborative Development (Spring 2010)

Section A/CRN 5652
Fabiola Berdiel
Tuesday 6.00pm - 7.50pm
Room: 2 W. 13th St., 500

This course will offer students the opportunity to gain an understanding of key concepts and skills essential to become global consultants for small business enterprises, focusing on social innovation, empowerment, and community development through design.  The course will prepare students to work with marginalized populations (women, indigenous groups, rural communities) by developing sustainable livelihood models through needs-based capacity building, product and project design and development, and by establishing networks of collaboration.

Students will examine and practice skills in the areas of sustainable development, social entrepreneurship, microcredit and microfinance, design of products as well as of community development models, business, marketing, media (as representation, communication, and intervention), and workshop facilitation in informal settings.  We will also look at case studies exploring the possibilities of using market-based approaches involving innovative design and media as tools for development.

This unique, interdisciplinary course will bring together students from the Graduate Program in International Affairs, Milano The New School for Management, and Parsons The New School for Design under the premise that there is not a single expert but different knowledges that complement each other and can be exchanged through collaborations.

This course serves as a prerequisite for the 2010 International Field Programs in Guatemala and Ethiopia; please see the IFP coordinator.  It is also open to non-IFP students as an elective.

Concentrations:Cities and Urbanization, Development