Class Meetings

NB: Due to over-enrollment of the class, the first meeting will be held in room 35-225. A lottery will be held to determine who may take the class.

The class meets MWF 3:30 - 5:00 in room 5-134.
Country groups will be determined later in the semester and will meet on Friday afternoons in rooms to be assigned later.

Course Description

D-Lab I is the first of a series of courses and field trips preparing students to respond to the basic needs of low-income households and communities in developing nations with technological solutions which are inexpensive, ecologically sustainable, and institutionally easily adaptable. This course introduces various notions of development, and explores several technological innovations necessary to enhance the quality of life in these communities. The course also prepares students to focus on specific issues, such as the need for potable water, low-cost agricultural processing equipment, basic sanitation, and affordable energy, specifically in communities where students will travel during IAP. Students will develop working relationships with partnering institutions in developing nations to ensure that the field trips provide both a learning opportunity and an international social network to test the viability of technological solutions jointly crafted by the students and the hosting communities.

D-Lab I is organized in three parts:  The first part of the course provides historical understanding of why conventional developmental efforts have not enhanced the quality of life of low-income households and communities. This is followed by a series of hands-on workshops in which students learn practical approaches towards addressing these issues.  These workshops are interspersed with discussions of case studies, led by eminent guest speakers who have innovated and implemented intermediate technological solutions in specific topic areas such as: energy, lighting systems, agricultural technologies, low-cost housing, water, sanitation, micro enterprises, cooking fuel, and health. The discussion of case studies also provides students the opportunity to select a problem area for deeper engagement during the IAP field trip. The third part of the course is focused on the preparation for the field trip by sensitizing students to the realities of fieldwork in unfamiliar settings, and discussing how to build enduring institutional relationships with communities for future collaboration. The students work in small groups studying the history, culture, language, economy and politics of the communities they plan to visit during IAP to understand the context within which their particular technological innovations must be embedded.

Course Goals

• Gain awareness of third world communities and the technical challenges they face
• Learn about appropriate technologies for developing communities, their impact, and how they can be conceived, designed and implemented
• Understand the role MIT can play in helping and advancing developing communities throughout the world
  
• Learn the hands-on skills required to implement selected development projects
  
• Gain exposure to the culture, history, economic and developmental state of the host countries
  
• Work with community organizations to prepare field projects for the IAP fieldtrips

Teaching Staff

Instructors
Amy Smith, Room 3-017 abs@mit.edu
Bish Sanyal, Room 9-435 sanyal@mit.edu

Project Trip Leaders

Required Text

Mastering the Machine Revisited: Poverty, Aid and Technology by Ian Smillie.  Some copies are available at the MIT Coop, or can be purchased on-line. In addition there are several required articles and readings from other sources that will be available in a binder in the D-Lab Library or can be downloaded from the D-Lab website. There are also several recommended books and articles available in the D-Lab library in room 3-017.

E-mail Lists and Website

There is an e.mail list for our seminar, d-lab-fall@mit.edu, which you can use to ask questions or send information of interest to the entire class.  The course staff can be reached at d-lab-staff@mit.edu. The class website can be found at http://web.mit.edu/d-lab/.  There will also be e.mail lists and on-line collaboration tools set up for each of the project teams.

Grading

This is a twelve-unit class: four hours and a half a week will be spent in class, two hours a week will be spent in project team meetings and the remaining five hours will be spent working on readings, homework, and developing the field projects.  Because much of the work for this seminar will be done during class time, attendance is essential.  Students missing a class meeting should contact the instructors to make up the work.  No more than two unexcused absences are allowed. This seminar is graded on a A/B/C/F basis, furthermore it is a class where your work is impacting the lives of people around the world and we expect an appropriate level of commitment.