On Thursday, September 11 the DPSI community gathered to kick-off the semester!
Team members, mentors, Berkman staff, and friends heard from Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow, Harvard Law School Professor Urs Gasser, Harvard Business School Professor Thomas Eisenmann, and HarvardX Research Fellow/Berkman affiliate Justin Reich.
Guests arrived at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where they sat by project teams for the kick-off event.
Harvard Law School Professor Urs Gasser provided welcoming remarks. He explored Berkman’s history of connecting technology and education through initiatives like the Youth and Media Lab, CopyrightX, and and now the Digital Problem-SolvingInitiative.
Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow regarded DPSI as a hybrid mode of learning, operating like an innovation lab.
Harvard Business School Professor Thomas Eisenmann offered advice about how to pursue new ventures and incubate ideas.
HarvardX Research Fellow and Berkman Affiliate Justin Reich offered takeaways from his DPSI team that participated in the 2013-2014 DPSI pilot.
Participants then met in teams to mingle, develop team names, discuss the upcoming semester, and of course, to enjoy snacks.
Stay tuned for more updates on DPSI team progress and events! And while you’re at it, like our page on Facebook!
Miss the deadline to apply, but still want to join DPSI? Not to worry! Although teams are underway, we’re still accepting applicants. Apply now!
We’ll also be having an info session Friday, September 11, at 4pm (with pizza!), at the Berkman Center, located on the second floor of 23 Everett Street, Cambridge.
If you can’t make it, feel free to reach out to us at dpsi (at) cyber (dot) law (dot) harvard (dot) edu.
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is seeking energetic, creative, and passionate students to apply for the Digital Problem Solving Initiative (DPSI). DPSI is a University-wide initiative that brings together a diverse group of learners (students, faculty, fellows, and staff) to work on real-world projects that address problems and opportunities across the university – no experience necessary!
DPSI offers all participants the opportunity to enhance and cultivate competency in various digital literacies as teams engage with research, design, and policy work relating to the Harvard community. As a student, you’ll have the opportunity to work with – and be mentored by – Harvard faculty, fellows, and staff in collaborative teams that will build and shape the increasingly digital environment in which we live, learn, work, and create.
Furthermore, DPSI is about listening to student voices, empowering student-led teams to bring their ideas to fruition. Maybe you want to help libraries connect better with students, or think about how to make online education more accessible. Maybe you want to build a Harvard-specific app. The DPSI community is a collaborative space that makes it possible to deliver tangible results.
To learn more about the application process, check out the DPSI website and apply now! Applications are due on Tuesday, September 9. If you are accepted into the program, you’ll be asked to commit to approximately 6-8 hours a week for the fall semester. In addition, if you’re interested in learning more about the Berkman Center, check out some of our kickoff activities in early September.
In the past couple months we (the DPSI team) have been reflecting on what we learned from the experience of piloting the Harvard Digital Problem-Solving Initiative, together with the insights and inputs of the participants who helped mold the venture and friends who helped nurture and guide it.
We’ve been buoyed by promising findings gathered through earnest reflection and feedback. There’s a strong sense of shared purpose among participants and an affirmation of the value of learning-by-doing. Teams’ outputs are doing real “work” out in the field and in the world.
On the whole, the results are encouraging. The process of channeling all this learning into the design of DPSI 2.0 is already underway.
Rather than hurdle down that path, however, it’s helpful to take a moment to meditate on what’s past.
“DPSI in 90 Seconds” offers a flavor of the experimentation, collaboration, and types of engagement that were central to the pilot. Collectively, the five use case teams brainstormed, iterated, and dove headfirst into multifaceted inquiries. They faced challenges and enjoyed successes. Between the initial guiding questions and the teams’ journeys over the course of a year, DPSI-ers studied innovation and “creation spaces,” both the world over and close to home (at Harvard’s iLab), plumbed datasets and privacy law with HarvardX, got the scoop from undergrads about how they do—or don’t—want to interact with Harvard on social media, encouraged HILT to explore new modes of practice, and flexed their curation and design skills in partnership with theHarvard Art Museums.
In addition to the video above, we’ve produced other works over the course of the year that help tell the pilot’s story. The videos explain the missions of DPSI broadly and the teams specifically, and also illustrate the ways in which participants connected to the experience, the subject matter, and to one another on a personal level. We’ve highlighted a few of them here:
For an overview of the pilot, including some of the students, faculty and team projects involved, watch the video below.
Dean of Harvard Law School, Martha Minow, encouraged DPSI teams at the Mid-year Workshop by highlighting how Harvard was already being changed for the better by the DPSI projects.
Throughout the program, ‘lightning’ talks bring expert practitioners from across the Harvard community to talk to DPSI team members and inspire new ways of thinking. For example, founder of The Experiment Fund Hugo Van Vuuren gave a talk on the ‘interoperability of physical spaces’ to remind us to find common time despite our digital life.
What’s Next?
Please check back soon here to see how you can become involved in DPSI 2014-2015. We encourage students, faculty, and staff to reach out to us about any and all questions concerning DPSI. We look forward to more participation and even broader collaboration in DPSI 2.0 as together we cultivate digital competencies, foster collaboration across layers and schools within Harvard, and challenge the way we think about problem-solving.
