There is still time to enroll in Intelligence++ (DES400-600), a partnership between the Taishoff Center for Inclusive Higher Education (InclusiveU), the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) School of Design and SU Libraries. The course is taught by Don Carr, professor in VPA’s School of Design, with support from Beth Myers, assistant professor of inclusive education in the School of Education and executive director of the Taishoff Center. It is an interdisciplinary class open to all academic majors from across campus.
The Intelligence ++ program launched with a generous donation by Gianfranco Zaccai ’70 H’09 and the Zaccai Foundation for Augmented Intelligence (Intelligence++). It provides courses through the academic year and culminates in a design and entrepreneurship competition with $10,000 in prizes.
Zaccai, a renowned global innovator and designer, serves as a mentor and guest lecturer for the course. Zaccai was co-founder of Continuum, now EPAM Continuum, a global innovation by design consultancy with offices in Boston, Milan, Seoul and Shanghai. He is the founder of the Zaccai Foundation for Augmented Intelligence, founded by Gianfranco Zaccai. The Zaccai Foundation seeks to develop, stimulate and leverage technological, educational and organizational innovation to enable and empower individuals with intellectual disability, their families and their communities to improve quality of life, enhance independence and productivity, lower cost and benefit society.
With an emphasis on interdisciplinary and collaborative innovation, the program is available as an elective to both undergraduate and graduate students from any school or college at Syracuse University, including students with intellectual disability from InclusiveU. It will be taught in the LaunchPad at Bird Library.
“I am confident that this program will be revolutionary in stimulating brilliant students, educators, and researchers to deeply explore and meaningfully innovate a better future,” Zaccai says. “We have an opportunity to blend in-context research, people-centered design, and the strengths and skills of diverse people and disciplines in a way that can change the world for the better for people of all abilities and talents. That’s why we’re so excited to partner with Syracuse University—we see the potential that a cross-disciplinary, multi-dimensional, innovative approach can bring to our society, and we want to propel young people to be at the forefront of developing real-world solutions.”
Concepts developed throughout the course will be presented to a panel of experts in a culminating competition in spring 2023, with $10,000 in seed funding awarded to the most promising ideas for further development.
For more information about the program, contact Don Carr at dwcarr@syr.edu