What are the steps to fostering collaboration in the academe, firms, industries, and organizations? Professor Richard Lyons, UC Berkeley's Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer, talks about his new position and new learnings. He discusses how the university is working to create an interface zone where ideas can be co-developed into commercial applications.

Hear how the university's Changemaker project encourages critical thinking, collaboration, and communication as essential factors in achieving that sense of agency in life. Be sure to listen to the end to hear his advice on how to maintain a good balance in creating a research-driven program. Along with host Greg LaBlanc, they discuss avoiding an intensively commoditized transmission of learning. The episode concludes with ideas about how a traditional setup of universities can be combined with the delivery of online content to maximize their role as knowledge creation and discovery centers. 

What is the Berkeley Changemaker?

“Berkeley has been involved in change in society for a long time. So, it doesn't surprise anybody to see those two words together at Berkeley. Then we put together a course, called the Berkeley Changemaker. It’s really about critical thinking, collaboration, and communication —things that are fundamental ingredients to that idea of agency in life.”

How are universities building an interface that bridges the idea generation happening in universities to the commercial world?

“The idea that there is a transfer point. That the idea ends here and the application starts there. That interval between early conception and the ultimate application for the benefit of society. It need not be for the profit world. This could be the creation of a civic organization or a policy movement or many other things. I think every university is thinking more about how do we create an interface zone. So that we can co-develop ideas a bit more further downstream than, what's coming out of our labs historically.”

How do you make the connection between what the students need and what the research priorities of the university are?

“By having this kind of platform, where we can pull people in from the humanities, social sciences, STEM fields, professional schools, and each of them has a little different view on what is critical thinking and what collaboration means. And how does it happen? Then to what use do we put it. It feels like it's creating an even richer bundle than if we had at a single department in what we have in Berkeley Changemaker.”

Guest’s Profile:

Richard Lyons Profile at Berkeley

Richard Lyons on Twitter @richlyons

Richard Lyons on LinkedIn

Programs and references Mentioned in the Episode:

Berkeley Changemaker Program