ENGR 250 / OIT 377 Social Entrepreneurship Startup

2003 Spring

Instructors

• behrman@stanford.edu
• 650-725-1200
• Office: Terman 297
• Office Hours: Mon - Fri, email or call ahead

• david.kelley@stanford.edu
• 650-289-3444
• Office: Terman 505
• Office Hours: Tue 4 - 6 PM, Wed 1 - 3 PM

• patell_james@gsb.stanford.edu
• 650-723-2765
• Office: Littlefield 251
• Office Hours: please arrange by email
• Assistant: Chris Lion, 650-723-9040, Littlefield 230

Teaching Assistant

• acd@stanford.edu
• 650-468-6684 (cell)

Description

This course will form a startup team of students with a diverse set of skills to tackle the following significant problem from the developing world. Over 1.6 billion people lack electricity in their homes and use fuel-based home lighting. This form of lighting can be unhealthy, environmentally harmful, dangerous, and expensive for families. The team will exploit the relatively new technology of LED lighting to develop affordable, renewably powered home lights, along with effective business plans for deploying them in China, India, and Mexico. The course will partner with Light Up the World.

Students with the necessary technical, design, and business skills will learn the Stanford/IDEO method of innovation and the art of entrepreneurship. They will have a briefing book of background research for the project developed an undergraduate seminar. From this starting point, they will develop, test, and iteratively improve three designs: the light, the experience by which the users come to obtain and maintain the light, and the business plan to make this all happen. They will receive frequent feedback on their designs from advisors drawn from domain experts, IDEO staff, manufacturers, successful entrepreneurs, and the philanthropic community. The goal will be to advance the project to the point where it can be funded and deployed.

Prerequisites

Students are selected based upon an application.

Readings

Readings will be in distributed at team meetings.

Exams

None.

Project

See project for details of the course project.

Milestones

The key milestones of the project are listed below and on the course schedule.

Estimated Workload and Grading

Students will be evaluated on their contributions in the team meetings, their presentations, and the quality of their research, design work, and writing.