COURSE DEVELOPMENT: ME professor Alice Agogino got funding for her classes on new product development and gender sensitive design for graduate and undergraduate students.

ME professor Alice Agogino secures funding for design and product development classes

ME professor Alice Agogino and Haas professor Sara Beckman have won a three year award from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) to support classes for graduate and undergraduate students.

The grant will fund entrepreneur team (E-team) projects in one graduate and two undergraduate level classes.

The graduate level product development course is called Managing New Product Development and co-taught with Beckman. The junior/senior level course Introduction to Product Development capitalizes on Agogino’s success with the graduate course, mixing multidisciplinary team design experiences, product development, and entrepreneurship fundamentals with mentoring by designers and inventors from local industry.

The grant will also fund a freshman/sophomore class titled Designing Technology for Girls and Women, co-taught with Agogino and EECS professor Jennifer Mankoff. The class lets students tackle design solutions to crucial societal problems while also focusing on female technology users and customers.

“The technology sold to the general public typically favors men over women. It is designed by men for men. By designing for girls and women and adding the voice of women designers you create a better, more inclusive product. Ultimately that adds a more balanced design perspective and creates a universal concept of design,” says Agogino.

The program promises to transform product development at Berkeley by engaging industry, while also nurturing student E-teams to pursue their projects after the class ends. The focus will be on invention, innovation and entrepreneurship, Agogino adds.

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