Newswise — Babson College and its Lewis Institute for Social Innovation have launched a new IoT For Good Lab—to encourage the creation of social impact solutions with the use of IoT (Internet of Things).
Sponsored by Verizon, the IoT For Good Lab will convene interdisciplinary teams of entrepreneurial thinkers, engineers, designers, artists, and liberal arts students in order to experiment with ideas and solutions for addressing the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, using the Internet of Things.
IoT For Good entrepreneurs will work to generate social value using the IoT, integrative thinking, human-centered design, innovative engineering, and creative business cases.
“The IoT is being hailed as the next technological revolution and will generate new entrepreneurial opportunities, business models, and solutions to some of the world's toughest challenges,” said Jennifer Bailey, Professor and Faculty Director of Babson’s IoT For Good Lab. “As a top-ranked school for entrepreneurship, Babson is ready now more than ever to help its entrepreneurs of all kinds leverage and integrate their combined knowledge in technology, business, and design to amplify and accelerate social impact solutions.”
On Wednesday, October 11, Babson hosted a special HUBweek event at the Babson Boston campus dedicated to idea of using IoT for good, to foster connected, inclusive, and smart cities. Alongside Verizon, the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, Olin College of Engineering, IoT Impact Labs, MassChallenge, and Continuum, Babson’s Lewis Institute invited attendees to experience demonstrations of IoT technologies; learn from thought leaders in the fields of technology, design, and social innovation; and hear directly from entrepreneurs and "action-takers" who are creating more inclusive communities with their IoT-driven startups.
As part of the Verizon-sponsored three-year initiative, the Lab will provide course resources, seed funds, and support to initiate and launch IoT-enabled social ventures. An example of a course supported by the Lab is an Inter-Disciplinary Product Design (IPD) course with students from Babson College, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Olin College of Engineering, which is team-taught by Professors Jennifer Bailey, James Read, Ben Linder, and Lawrence Neeley. This year, the course’s theme is leveraging IoT to design for equality and inclusivity. Students will have an opportunity to continue their learning about IoT when the class visits the Verizon Innovation Center on October 19. The Verizon Innovation Center features demonstrations of commercially available IoT products as well as visionary IoT products that are still under development. The visit will serve to demonstrate to the students the power and the possibilities for leveraging IoT for social impact.
Full details about the Lab can be found at www.babson.edu/IoTforGood.
About The Lewis Institute
The Lewis Institute illuminates pathways for students, faculty, staff, foundations, and corporate partners seeking social innovation solutions. By drawing upon Babson’s core methodology of Entrepreneurial Thought & Action®, we activate unexpected and fruitful collaborations and integrative designs for action. The result is business prosperity and societal improvement. We extend our impact through the Babson Social Innovation Lab, an action tank powered by Toyota, which incubates people and ideas in the world of the social innovation.
About Babson College
Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®. The top-rankedcollege for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.
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