社会基盤イノベーションE

Civil engineers have been confronted with social problems related to infrastructure development, while we are expected to pioneer new fields in which civil engineering could contribute to social innovation. The 4th industrial revolution is creating new paradigms in all aspects of modern life. Success will depend then on the development of new sets of skills. The ability to understand complex systems and the interactions between technology and society will be one of those. This lecture will be a step on that direction.
The i.school was founded in 2009 as a program of Center of Knowledge Structuring at The University of Tokyo. Its goals are to educate students to be able to design workshop processes for creative work and to have confidence to be innovative. The i.school has been focused on “human-centered innovation” for social problem solving and/or social innovation, which would stand in a contrastive relationship to conventional technological innovation and be based on insight into human lives and values.
Based on the experience generated at the i.school and the department of civil engineering, students will learn the abilities and knowledge of innovation workshops by practice. You will experience several innovation workshops to create new ideas for particular social problems. You will then acquire the competency, and motivation, to practice innovation workshop to solve social problems in the real world, or to create new research for society.
During this course, we will utilize the technique of “future foresight”. For this, you will explore current trends and develop “images” of possible future paradigm changes. Students will apply these abilities to the important issue of the global green transformation (GX) and the realization of the Agenda 2030 (Sustainable Development Goals) and the Paris Climate Agreement. In particular, students will think on the development of new products and services to realize these while considering technological and societal aspects and their interactions. Previous knowledge on energy is not required for this course. Nevertheless, throughout the process, it is expected that students will increase their understanding on the issue.