PBAF 599: Prize-Driven Innovation and Philanthropy – Winter 2011 – Course Syllabus

Instructors: Kevin C. Desouza, Sandra Archibald, and Ann Bostrom

Mondays 3:00-5:50    PAR (108)

Credit Hours: 2

Email: kevin(dot)c(dot)desouza [at] gmail [.com] and abostrom @ u.washington.edu

Course Description: This course is part of a two course sequence that explores the use of prize-based competitions to foster innovation and philanthropy. Prize-based competitions have been used with great success (e.g. X-Prize Foundation, Kravis Prize, etc) to foster solution development in complex areas. In this course, we explore the theoretical and applied perspectives to prize development. Specifically, in the first part of the course (i.e. the Winter Quarter), we will explore the theoretical evidence for prize-based competitions to foster innovation. In the second part of the course, students, working in inter-disciplinary teams, will develop prize concepts within the domain of urban water resource management.

Learning Objectives:
Upon the completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. Articulate the features of incentive prizes and contexts in which they are most effective
2. Describe incentive prizes in the context of existing economic models of innovation
3. Analyze effective areas for investment of limited resources to foster innovation for global advancement
4. Work effectively in interdisciplinary teams
5. Develop a prize concept and present to stakeholders
6. Appreciate the grand challenges of urban water resource management

Schedule:

Week	Date	Topic	Speaker	Readings / Assignments Due
1	Jan 3	Course Introduction, Goals, and Introduction to Prize-based Competition for Innovation and Philanthropy;The X-Prize Model: The TB Case	Ann Bostrom, Erika Wagner and Kevin Desouza (via Skype)	https://faculty.washington.edu/kdesouza/courses/TB.zip.
2	Jan 10	The Innovation Process	Kevin Desouza	Desouza, K.C., Dombrowski, C., Awazu, Y., Baloh, P., Sangareddy, S.R.P., Jha, S., and Kim, J.Y. “Crafting Organizational Innovation Processes,” Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice, 11 (1), 2009, 6-33. Awazu, Y., Baloh, P. , Desouza, K.C., Wecht, C.H., Kim, J.Y., and Jha, S. “Information-Communication Technologies Open Up Innovation,” Research-Technology Management, 52(1), 2009, 51-58.
3	Jan 17	No Class – MLK Holiday		Assignment: Initial Team Composition
4	Jan 24	Water Panel I – Introduction to Grand Challenges in Urban Water Resource Management Part 1: Joel BakerPart 2:  Mark Benjamin, Mark Benjamin; Michael T. Brett; Michael C. Dodd; Gregory V. Korshin	Moderated by Ann Bostrom	Water: A Global Innovation Outlook Report, IBM Global Environmental Health: Research Gaps and Barriers for Providing Sustainable Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Services: Workshop Summary (2009) National Academies Press, Washington DC.   (read at least pages 1-16)
5	Jan 31	Innovation Panel: Ben Slivka, Lindbergh, Rick LeFaivre	Moderated by Kevin Desouza
6	Feb 7	Howard McCurdy – Innovation and S&T Policy		Assignment: Team Goals and Strategies
7	Feb 14	Water Panel – IIPart 1: Alan Hamlet, Erkan Istanbulluoglu (confirmed), and Jessica Lundquist (invited) (UW) Part 2: Sally Brown (UW) and Sue Kaufman-Una (King County Reclaimed water program)	Moderated by Ann Bostrom
8	Feb 21	No Class – Presidents’ Day		Assignment: Initial Problem Description and Research
9	Feb 28	Solving Complex Problems: Causal Diagrams and Modeling	Ann Bostrom	Dhandapani, Dhanasekar (2004).  Applying the Fishbone diagram and Pareto principle to Domino, Part 1.
10	Mar 7	Reflection Presentations and Course Wrap-up	Kevin C. Desouza	Team Initial Concept Presentation and Reflection Paper

Grading:

1. Class participation: 20%
2. Presentation: 30%
3. Team formation: 30%
4. Reflection paper: 20%

Class Participation: This class will be conducted in a workshop model. Attendance at all class sessions is hence mandatory, and active class participation is also expected. Students should do assigned readings, conduct background research about guest speakers, and engage in the class dialogue.

Presentation: Each student will be given an opportunity to make a brief in-class presentation (about 20 minutes). It is expected that the student will discuss contemporary issues on prize-based competitions for innovation and philanthropy. The student should share with the class 3-4 related articles (either from newspapers, academic journals, etc) at least 48 hrs before their presentation.

Team Formation and Assignments: During the Winter Quarter, students will conduct preliminary work towards creating their inter-disciplinary teams that will work on prize concepts. To this end, it is important that students network with their peers, identify teammates, and create preliminary team charters (i.e. the focus of the team, roles of members, tentative project plan, etc). Throughout the course, the teams will have time to work collaboratively on a number of hands-on, in class, assignments (e.g. problem identification, causal models, etc).

Reflection Paper: A brief (5 page) reflection paper must be prepared during the 9^th week of the Quarter. This paper should outline critical learning one took away from the course. This is an opportunity to showcase how the student synthesized material presented in class with external readings, etc. In addition, the paper should focus on one of the core topics discussed in class (e.g. metrics, economics of innovation, etc) and outline additional resources, approaches, etc that may be considered for future classes.

Selected Readings:

1. NRC National Research Council (2007) Innovation Inducement Prizes at the National Science Foundation. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11816
2. McKinsey Report, And the winner is…. http://www.xprize.org/about/the-mckinsey-report
3. Knight KJ, Cunio PM, Kwan JD, Bhushan B, Wagner EB (2010) Prizes for Energy Innovation: Incentives for Today’s Challenges (MIT IPC Working Paper 10-007) http://web.mit.edu/ipc/research/energy/pdf/EIP_10-001.pdf
4. Dhandapani, Dhanasekar (2004).  Applying the Fishbone diagram and Pareto principle to Domino, Part 1.  http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/fishbone/
5. Water reports: Water: A Global Innovation Outlook Report, IBM.  Availsble at:  http://www.ibm.com/ibm/gio/water.html
6. Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice (BPH), Institute of Medicine, Global Environmental Health: Research Gaps and Barriers for Providing Sustainable Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Services: Workshop Summary (2009) National Academies Press, Washington DC.  Free pdf download available at:  http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12597
7. Useful websites:

• EU SWITCH resources, http://switchurbanwater.lboro.ac.uk/outputs/results.php?theme_select=5&pt=Theme%205%20Resources&m=0,3,5,1
• NAE grand challenge of clean water, http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9142.aspx
• UN World Water Week (Planning for world water day 2011): http://www.worldwaterweek.org/sa/node.asp?node=750&sa_content_url=/plugins/EventFinder/event.asp&id=3&event=252

Information on visiting speakers:

• Joel Baker,  http://www.tacoma.washington.edu/urbanwaters/about/staff.html
• Mark M. Benjamin, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/benjamin_m.html
• Mike Brett, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/brett_m.html
• Sally Brown, http://faculty.washington.edu/slb/
• Mike Dodd, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/dodd_m.html
• Alan Hamlet, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/hamlet_a.html
  • Erkan Istanbulluoglu, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/istandbulluoglu_e.html
  • Sue Kaufman-Una, http://directory.kingcounty.gov/EmployeeDetail.asp?EmpID=41127
  • Greg Korshin, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/korshin_g.html
  • Erika Wagner, http://www.xprize.org/education-initiatives/x-prize-lab-mit
  • Dr. Ellen Lettvin joined Pacific Science Center in late 2008 as Vice President for Science and Education. In her former role as Assistant Director of Education and Outreach and Senior Oceanographer at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Ellen worked closely with Pacific Science Center on a variety of informal science education initiatives, such as Polar Science Weekend and our Carbon Monitoring project. At APL, Ellen was responsible for increasing the visibility of the lab, including in local and national K-12 educational communities and the regional entrepreneurial community. She initiated several innovative outreach efforts that have achieved a broad-reaching presence for APL. Ellen earned her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences from the University of Michigan, as well as an M.A. in Applied Statistics and B.S. in Geological Sciences.
  • Ben Slivka (www.slivka.com) has 20+ years of experience as a successful technology innovator and has spent much of the past 10 years assisting various non-profit and for-profit educational organizations. He was a Director of TeachFirst and previously served on the Advisory Board of UIEvolution and as a Director of Vizrea and GroundSpring.org. Ben spent 14 years at Microsoft, where he worked on OS/2, MS-DOS 6, Windows 95, the Java VM, and MSN. He started the Internet Explorer team in 1994 and led it through the release of IE version 3.0 in 1996. IE 3.0 beat Netscape 3.0 in press reviews and achieved 30% market share by the time IE 4.0 released in 1997. Ben installed Microsoft’s first production LAN in 1985, proposed the FAT32 file system in 1990, led the team that wrote the Win32 API specification in 1991, and started and led the team that created CAB software distribution files in 1993. His work at Microsoft resulted in 18 issued U.S. patents. Ben also worked brief stints at Amazon and IBM. Ben and his wife Lisa created the Wissner-Slivka Foundation in 1997, primarily focused on supporting education. His non-profit engagements include Bellevue Schools Foundation, Garfield High School Foundation, and Social Venture Partners, where he is the lead partner for Seattle MESA. Ben earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and a B.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University, where he has served as a Trustee since 1998.
  • Erik Lindbergh, http://www.eriklindbergh.com/about.htm

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