College of the Desert has been selected by the California Community Colleges to pilot a bold initiative to catalyze innovation and invention to solve social problems.
Led by the Chancellor’s Office, and in collaboration with the Lemelson-MIT Program, the Invention and Inclusive Innovation initiative integrates an emerging learning approach for working across disciplinary boundaries, known as invention education.
COD faculty and leadership will work with faculty at three other colleges in the state to develop a program prototype that will guide learners on a path to discovery and facilitate the invention of new products that solve community problems for larger social good.
COD’s program, named College of the Desert IDEA (Innovation, Development, Entrepreneurship and Action), will include multidiscipline student teams working online, in and out of the classroom, utilizing an open inquiry and problem finding approach to solving challenges within their communities over the course of six to nine months.
Student recruitment for the first COD IDEA cohort will take place later this summer.
