SIP week - the Sloan Innovation Period which happens for one week in the middle of each semester straight after midterms. It is a week of presentations and sessions from a whole load of professors and external speakers about various interest and research topics.
Here are some of my thoughts and learnings from the week:
World Class Public speaking (Darren LaCroix): the most important part of a presentation is the thought process the audience is going through.
The Rich and the Thirsty (Anjali Sastry): the problems caused by water pollution and water scarcity. 3.4mln people die each year from preventable water related diseases. 90% of these are children.
Jamuna Bridge (Dr Leautier): a simulated negotiation involving a large capital project, social justice, under represented groups and multiple stakeholders - this time for an infrastructure project in Bangladesh.
Mediation and Arbitration (Curhan/Eigen): how to consume lawyers. The difference between mediation and arbitration and when you might choose one or the other.
How people learn (Sastry): a practical session among other things emphasising the different ways of learning and operating people have using the accomodator/assimilator / converger / diverger model and tasking each group with 'we love / we hate' lists.
Integrity (Jensen/Erhard): presented by the creator of EST himself. Integrity being as natural and inescapable as gravity and how to maximise workability in your life.
Sustainability (Otto Scharmer): an inspiring session about how we should be looking at the world, and the places we live, in a systemic way that includes ourselves. That because of the culture we grow up in and the language we use, we instinctively think of 'people' as being separate from 'nature'. Nature is something to be fenced off and protected. 'Preserving' nature means minimising human contact. Rather we should see ourselves as an integral part of the world and examine our role in cocreating and regenerating the ecology as it was supposed to be.



