By UW Sustainability | May 20, 2016

The Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship is again offering two practicum courses this fall focusing on innovation - the Environmental Innovation Challenge and the Health Innovation Challenge practicums.

In both courses, students hear fantastic leading-edge speakers, work on idea generation for changes that will make a difference in the environment or in healthcare, then roll up their sleeves and work on cross-disciplinary teams to figure out how to make their ideas a reality. These courses are for grads and undergrads from all majors.

The goal of the Environmental Innovation Challenge practicum is to help students discover how innovative solutions are addressing pressing environmental issues, and learn how they can be part of those solutions. Students will gain awareness of the challenges and how businesses are tackling them, learn from subject matter experts about solutions emerging in various industries, and gain hands-on experience in developing business solution concepts addressing environmental challenges. Students will participate in team projects, and teams formed in class are encouraged (but not required) to go on to compete in the annual Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge (EIC).

The Health Innovation Challenge practicum will help students innovate and create solutions to the toughest health challenges we face –on a domestic or global scale. Students will form cross-disciplinary teams around project concepts chosen by the class and present the team’s solutions to classmates and a panel of expert judges who will score the presentations. Although not required, teams are invited and encouraged to go beyond the class to compete in the 2017 Health Innovation Challenge.