Here are short abstracts of the 2007 winning proposals in this category:
Modern Slave Trade: The course that our team would like to see offered is one that focuses on the issues of the Modern Slave Trade. Most people think of slavery as something that was abolished in the 19th century by Abraham Lincoln, but the sad fact is that slavery has continued through the twentieth century and is thriving today. Modern slavery is an umbrella term that encompasses many difference aspects including the sale and trafficking of human beings (either for sexual exploitation or manual labor), the abduction of children by rebel groups in Africa for use as child soldiers and trans-generational debt bondage in nations such as India. With more than 800,000 people trafficked throughout the world every year, modern slavery is on the rise and is thriving in part do to the economic revolution sweeping through South and Southeast Asia. We believe a course that focuses specifically these issues is essential in order to bring to light a hidden and largely unknown blight in our world.
Social Entrepreneurship In Practice (SEIP): Leveraging UC Berkeley’s diverse talent to promote social change: We propose creating a series of new courses that would be focused on the practice of social entrepreneurship. Fundamental to these courses would be bringing together cross functional teams composed of students from different schools at both the undergraduate and graduate levels to learn the unique challenges and gain hands-on experience in social entrepreneurship. Our coursework would include a “core” class in which students would receive an overview of the emerging field of social entrepreneurship from both instructors and practitioners. Following the core class, students could move onto one of two follow-up classes: Social Entrepreneurship Consulting (SEC) or Social Entrepreneurship Funding (SEF).
Battery Technologies: Addressing the Growing Demand for Electrical Energy Storage: There is widespread current interest in energy innovation and technology for a number of reasons, including climate change, energy security, pollution, and volatile energy prices. Current interests in addressing these problems fall into a number of different categories, including energy generation, energy demand management, efficiency improvements, energy conversion, and energy storage, among others. A number of courses at UC Berkeley address the challenges in these categories; for example, there are courses on energy markets and fuel cells, on the electrical grid and on combustion. However, among these course offerings there is a notable lack of attention given to energy storage. In fact, although many researchers and commentators frequently stress the importance of energy storage in the broader story about energy, there is no course at UC Berkeley on energy storage. And, while there are many forms of energy storage, including mechanical (e.g., flywheels, pumped hydro) and chemical (e.g., biofuels), the most important form of energy storage today is electrochemical batteries. We therefore propose a course that focuses on batteries for electrical energy storage.
For the 2006 winning proposals, see: 2006 winners