Global Warming and World Hunger

Well these were the topics for our Design Challenge - II which happened today and brings yet another busy week to end. There were 10 teams like earlier Design Challenge and each of us were suppose to take either on Global Warming or World Hunger problem and come up with a systems approach to how to solve them. Obviously they did not expect us to solve these problems in two weeks but to see how we approach a complex system. We picked World Nutrition topic and presented an idea of floating a company which will use system dynamics to make models and give region/case specific solution to Non Government and government organizations so that they will be able to get more value for their efforts. Other teams had great ideas - Like for Global warming we heard ideas of using algae which absorbs CO2 and converts it to BioFuel, space elevator (future), Government policy modifications and other innovative ones and for World Nutrition (Obesity and Malnutrition) we had ideas like Kiwi Cards where you get points for eating at healthy places which can be converted to miles and gift cards, other ideas were genetically engineered crops/animals, lot of graphs and statistics........Interesting was that even after doing research for about two weeks and getting to know lot of stuff still there were new approaches and ideas to be learned from other teams. 7 teams presented solution/approach to curb world hunger and Obesity and none were the same all teams had different solution/approach.
Idea I guess is to enhance the thought process, these Design Challenges are there to start system thinking in our minds...is it working? I'll let you know as the time goes by....:-)
AD.

Assigments and Design Challenge

Thats typical of MIT studying Systems Architect on one hand and solving world hunger problem on the other...We are working on Design competition to come with a system approach on hunger-obesity spectrum. We have divided the work and are working on trends, approaches in different part of the globe. This weekend was long but so was the assignments and to do list of things to submit next week. Some folks went for Boston this morning but I got up late (thanks to late sitting last night) and missed the trip, well it was very cold - I wouldn't have enjoyed anyways..:-).
Eating American all week gave way to eating Desi twice this weekend one was nice buffet in Hotel Shalimar of India on Mass Ave. and other in Desi Dhaba for dinner tonight.
So what have I learned so far:

a) Design Challenge.
b) System Architecture.
c) Human Side of Technology.
d) Probability and Statistics as a refresher for Engineering Risk Benefit Analysis.
e) System approach to past cases, things around us and future solutions and concepts.

I'll elaborate on each one of them later. As someone put it nicely that to learn at a institute like MIT is like drinking water from fire hose - and so I'm working on planning my spring courses to make sure I drink the part I need to quench my thirst.
I've made some good friends and acquaintances and have all intention to make these new networking to work for mutual benefit in the time to come.

Just finished reading a case on Homestar Appliances on which we all need to write a report before end of this month - will ponder on it in coming week.

Chao.

Snow and Lectures

Well we had 10 inches of snow yesterday and the spring like weather last weekend was transformed to a true Boston style winter. One thing is sure after living in winter in Boston I'll definitely stop cribbing about cold in Philly..:-)

We had sessions on Career development today - Networking, using Alumni, MIT web resources and Career development depts. One last year SDMer also gave insight on how he was able to secure 5 offers by using these resources, not that all get these kind of offers but it was good to see a working approach.

Tomorrow we will have Resume building exercise where they shrink your 5 page resume to 1 and try to make you more aware of your skills, goals, options and career path - will post more about it later.

System Architecture (SA) - This has been more of a philosophical class so far but in last couple of sessions it has become clear why Mr. Crawley has taken the approach of clearing the terms, nomenclature and definitions first and then getting in to functions and other elements. SA's assignments are interesting but are very time consuming the currency we SDMers do not have in JAN..:-).

Human Side of Technology is very well taught by Ralph Katz and he is doing an amazing job in keeping the class participation and clearing the concepts. His energy is visible on the podium, no wonder his lecture is after lunch and even after free lunch I see very few heads dozing. This lecture talks about Human behavior in organizations, team work, disruptive technologies - Lot of interesting storied from Ralph's personal experience, Its very informative.

...........and we have a 6 lecture refresher on Probability and Statistics which will be used in our Engineering Risk and Benefit Analysis later.

Working on my spring course selection this week as I'll be taking them via Video Conf. so will need to synchronize them with the work.

Well its 11:45 in the night and I need to teleport to dream so saio nara .... will catch yaa later.

Where is sleep in the schedule ?

It has been a crazy week at SDM-MIT. By some calculation average sleep the class got last week was less than 5 hours. Last week we had first lectures in System Architecture, Refresher on Statistic and probability and Human side of technology. SDM is a costly program but it was good to sense the worth in the professors who teach, they are masters of their fields with so many papers and books under their belt and they bring tremendous experience and vision to the class.
So we had lectures 9:00 - 5:00 with assignments and then from 5:30 onwards till night whatever time the group design challenge work was done, we had to steal some time after 5:30 to finish the class assignments too. In First Design challenge the class was divided in 10 teams of 6/7 people (total class of about 65). The task was to build a robot from kit who could do 5 different tasks. Competition was held last Thursday and it was great to be part of a highly charged atmosphere. Our robot did did not do as well as we anticipated but the competition was fun, it was great a team building exercise and there were lot of learnings.

Some photographs from our Design Challenge-I :

Working on the bot:
















Final version (ready to fire ..:-))
















Competition Arena:
















Other Robots (the ones on the table..:-) :















Yesterday we got our Second Design challenge (DS) in which the class is divided again in to 10 teams but with different people. DS-II is more of a research based project in which we have to choose one of the topics (Global warming, Malnutrition in poor countries/Obesity in developed countries and how we can divide the food more equally in this world). We need to take a systems approach to give a solution to one of these problems and present in class in another 10 days. With hectic last 10 days our group started DS-II with a little introduction and then agreeing that lets take this weekend off to reboot. I came went back home to spend some quality time with wifey and little one. It was nice to to eat some home made food after 10 days of pizza, sandwiches and salad. Heading back to MIT tomorrow.
MIT campus is amazing and is at the most desirable location on the bank of Charles river. Here are some of the campus snaps.

Boston Downtown from MIT Campus:

MIT Main building:






























I'll end today by saying that I'm glad to be here. There is wealth of knowledge here and I hope I'll be able to absorb the little part which will make my time here and future more worthwhile.
Catch you all later.
AD.

First day at SDM 2008

Today was first day at SDM. It started with little presentation from program director Pat Hale talked about what to expect in JAN session. Then each of us (60 folks) went on with presenting a brief slide pack telling about ourselves. Its an amazing mix of folks, by rough count I could see at least 15 from India and south asia, about 10 from China/Korea/Japan, some 10 from Latin Amercia, quite a few from Canada and Europe and about 10 from USA Navy. Almost 60% already have Masters degree, couple of PHDs, a physician doctor, some with MBAs and couple who left their MBA programs to join SDM. More than the academic it was interesting to see a great bunch of folks having very varied taste , hobbies and outlook towards life. After couple of other general information session we were given our first design challenge in the evening. We have to make a robot (kit provided) who can shot a projectile, do relay race with other group's robot, do synchronized dancing with other group's robot, do tug of war. So its a nice 5 day exercise where 10 teams (6 in each team) will compete/collaborate to accomplish this task. This is only evening work we still have to attend lectures in day time.
First day was a great experience, no burning yet but I can feel the heat.
Will come back..:-)

Reached the campus..finally

Its an amazing feeling to be where you want to be..:-)
I finally reached MIT campus today evening. I'll be trying to get as much sleep I can get today as the schedule from tomorrow looks crazy. We have first two weeks of JAN with Classes/group activities from 8:30 AM till 10:30 in the night and then till 6:30PM for remaining two weeks of JAN, no wonder the JAN session has earned the name as "JAN Boot Camp". Apart from getting in to topics like Risk Benefit Analysis, System Architecture, Human Side of Managing Technological Innovation and product design and development there will be two design challenges in JAN.
Drive to campus was hectic but its good to be finally on the campus.
Thats it for today will come back with more from the class...