Innovation

Call for Proposals: Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation & Connected Campus Grants

March 2, 2020
Bill Allison
We are now accepting proposals for Berkeley's first-ever CTO Technology Innovation program. The CTO is looking to support proposals that will enhance the University's operations, bolster its research endeavors or help transform instruction and the classroom experience. The innovation project you propose should involve some combination of people, process, technology and information and support one or more of UC Berkeley's three key campus strategies:

Meet the Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation Grants Review Committee

June 15, 2020
Bill Allison
Submissions have closed, and the review committee is evaluating this year's applicants to the Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation Grant program. The grant program supports proof of value experiments that enhance the University's operations, bolster its research endeavors, and help transform instruction and the classroom experience. As advisor Jean Cheng puts it, "At a time when the campus is looking for solutions to new and urgent problems, the CTO grant program is an exciting opportunity to make strategic contributions to projects that are likely to have a significant impact. We were thrilled to see compelling proposals from diverse groups and corners of campus."

Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation Grant Awardees Announced

June 25, 2020
Bill Allison
Back in February, we began to put out the call for innovation proposals from all over campus, asking them to share their alignment with the Chancellor's top strategic priorities and also to address what the University needs NOW. For a top research University, no matter what hard times we're having, innovation isn't just a "nice to have" - it's an essential ingredient to maintaining our excellence and scaling access & equity for a Berkeley education. Many proposals we received tackle Berkeley's response to remote learning beyond Zoom during COVID-19.

Launching the Berkeley AI Community of Practice and the Berkeley AI Meetup

October 9, 2023
Bill Allison
Artificial intelligence is just beginning to come of age. The latest wave of new AI capabilities has transformed what's possible in meaningful ways, reminiscent of the rise of the internet or the inception of public cloud and mobile computing. These technological advances along with an acceleration of new capabilities will deeply impact core functions of teaching, learning, research and administration at all universities. Advances are occurring across many domains of AI-- and the community of practice encompasses this wider interpretation-- from machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, including generative AI and also inquiry into AI ethics, explainable AI and knowledge representation.

UC Berkeley Podcast Studio: Engaging & Amplifying Student Voices

April 1, 2022
Tara Kumar, Kareena Wu
Through the Berkeley Changemakers Innovation Grant, Dr. Pablo Gonzalez and his team have created a fully functioning podcast studio for students, faculty, and staff to utilize. The purpose of this studio is to give the UC Berkeley community a platform to amplify their voices. The CTO interns were lucky enough to get the opportunity to record at the studio and further understand what this studio means to the university community but also how to get more students, faculty, and staff involved.

Highlights from the 2020 Fall Technology Innovation Forum

December 14, 2020
Deepshika Dhanasekar
Last month a group of inspiring and diverse group of teams celebrated their groundbreaking innovations at the Fall Technology Innovation Forum. The theme of the innovation forum was “Innovation in the Time of Coronavirus.” Given this year’s tumultuous events, the forum was designed to convene people from across campus who are designing new ways of doing things so they could connect virtually and share their experiences developing teaching and environmental applications to combat the impact of Coronavirus.

Connected Campus

The Berkeley Connected Campus

The CTO Innovation Program recognizes the importance of the University's physical infrastructure, both the new as well as the historical. Current "smart" and "Internet of Things" technologies can bridge the physical and digital campus, making previously unimaginable experiences and efficiencies possible. It will take a multi-organizational endeavor, convening people from different units to rethink the processes, technology and information to realize this vision.

The Berkeley ...

Berkeley Changemaker Technology Innovation Grants

Berkeley Changemaker™ Technology Innovation Grants

Our grant program takes its name from Rich Lyons’ Berkeley Changemaker™ program. As the University's first Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer, Lyons’ program builds on Berkeley's core identity -- as he's called it, "our common why". UC Berkeley's scientists, humanists, engineers and activists all desire to change the world for the better. ...

VRTutor

FY20 Awardee Profile: VRTutor

Awardee:

Bjoern Hartmann, Associate Professor, EECS, Faculty Director, Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation

VRTutor will help students of studio-based art and design classes learn virtually. Existing VR applications offer rich immersive environments for students, however students need to transition between wearing their headsets to use VR software, then take them off again to follow video tutorials on bCourses...

Insight XR

FY20 Awardee Profile: InsightXR

Awardees:

Luisa Caldas, PhD, Professor, Department of Architecture, Director XR Lab - Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality Laboratory, Faculty Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Elnaz Tafrihi Bailey...