In this course students are exposed to history and culture of German-speaking countries through audio, video, and Web materials. It focuses on the expansion of basic communication skills and further development of linguistic competency, and includes the review and completion of basic grammar, building of vocabulary, and practice in writing short essays. Students will also read short literary texts.

This course expands skills in speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Students develop analytic and interpretative skills through the reading of a full-length drama as well as short prose and poetry (Biermann, Brecht, Dürrenmatt, Tawada and others) and through media selections on contemporary issues in German-speaking cultures. Coursework includes discussions and compositions based on these texts, and review of grammar and development of vocabulary-building strategies. It is recommended for students with two years of high school German.

This course focuses on development of interpretive skills, using literary texts (B. Brecht, S. Zweig) and contemporary media texts (film, TV broadcasts, Web materials). The emphasis is on discussion and exploration of cultural topics in their current social, political, and historical context via hypermedia documentaries. It also covers further refinement of oral and written expression and expansion of communicative competence in practical everyday situations.

Prepares students for working and living in German-speaking countries. Focus on current political, social, and cultural issues, using newspapers, journals, TV, radio broadcasts, and Web sources from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Emphasis on speaking, writing, and reading skills for professional contexts. Activities include: oral presentations, group discussions, guest lectures, and interviews with German speakers. No listeners.

This course focuses on main currents in contemporary German literary and visual culture. Taking Nietzsche’s thought as a point of departure, students will survey the dialectics of tradition and modernity in both Germany and other European countries, particularly the UK, France, Denmark, and Poland. Primary works are drawn from literature, cinema, art, and performance, including works by Peter Sloterdijk, Thomas Vinterberg, and Michel Houellebecq.

An old saying holds that “there are many more good ideas in the world than good ideas implemented.” This is a case based introduction to the fundamentals of effective implementation. Developed with the needs and interests of planners—but also with broad potential application—in mind, this course is a fast paced, case driven introduction to developing strategy for organizations and projects, managing operations, recruiting and developing talent, taking calculated risks, measuring results (performance), and leading adaptive change, for example where new mental models and habits are required but also challenging to promote. Our cases are set in the U.S. and the developing world and in multiple work sectors (urban redevelopment, transportation, workforce development, housing, etc.). We will draw on public, private, and nonprofit implementation concepts and experience.
This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

The Girls Who Build Cameras workshop for high school girls is a one-day, hands-on introduction to camera physics and technology (i.e. how Instagram works!) at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Beaverworks Center. The workshop includes tearing down old dSLR cameras, building a Raspberry Pi camera, and designing Instagram filters and Photoshop tools. Participants also get to listen to keynote speakers from the camera technology industry, including Kris Clark who engineers space cameras for NASA and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and Uyanga Tsedev who creates imaging probes to help surgeons find tumors at MIT. During lunch, representatives from the Society of Women Engineers and the Women’s Technology Program at MIT will present future opportunities to get involved in engineering in high school and college.

The Girls Who Build: Make Your Own Wearables workshop for high school girls is an introduction to computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering through wearable technology. The workshop, developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, consists of two major hands-on projects in manufacturing and wearable electronics. These include 3D printing jewelry and laser cutting a purse, as well as programming LEDs to light up when walking. Participants learn the design process, 3D computer modeling, and machine shop tools, in addition to writing code and building a circuit.

This course examines contemporary and historical cultural production on and from Africa across a range of registers, including literary, musical and visual arts, material culture, and science and technology. It employs key theoretical concepts from anthropology and social theory to analyze these forms and phenomena. It also uses case studies to consider how Africa articulates its place in, and relationship to, the world through creative practices. Discussion topics are largely drawn from Francophone and sub-Saharan Africa, but also from throughout the continent and the African diaspora.

This class is designed to expose you to the cycles of disasters, the roots of emergency planning in the U.S., how to understand and map vulnerabilities, and expose you to the disaster planning in different contexts, including in developing countries.

This class introduces scientific, economic, and ecological issues underlying the threat of global climate change, and the institutions engaged in negotiating an international response. It also develops an integrated approach to analysis of climate change processes, and assessment of proposed policy measures, drawing on research and model development within the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

GEM4 Vision
GEM4 has brought together researchers and professionals in major institutions across the globe with distinctly different, but complementary, expertise and facilities to address significant problems at the intersections of select topics of engineering, life sciences, technology, medicine and public health.
GEM4 creates new models for interactions across scientific disciplinary boundaries whereby problems spanning the range of fundamental science to clinical studies and public health can be addressed on a global scale through strategic international partnerships.
Through initial focus areas in cell and molecular biomechanics, and environmental health, in the context of select human diseases, GEM4 creates a global forum for the definition and exploration of grand challenges and scientific studies, for the cross-fertilization of ideas among engineers, life scientists and medical professionals, and for the development of novel educational tools.
GEM4 Activities
GEM4 enables the brokering of engineers, life scientists and medical professionals with shared facilities and joint students and post-doctoral fellows to tackle major problems in the context of human health and diseases that call for state-of-the-art experimental and computational tools in cell and molecular mechanics, biology and medicine. Broad examples of problems addressed include:

infectious diseases such as malaria,
cancer,
cardiovascular diseases,
biomechanical origins of inflammation.

In each of these areas, the initial emphasis has included (but will not be limited to) molecular, subcellular and cellular mechanics applied to biomedicine, where a single investigator or institution is not likely to have the full spectrum of expertise, infrastructure or resources available to cover fundamental molecular science all the way to clinical studies and societal implications. Currently, twelve institutions in North America, Europe and Asia participate in this effort as Core institutions, focusing on mechanistic studies, as well as novel methods for diagnostics, vaccines or drug development and delivery.
Funds have been raised to provide a structure for coordinated studies from major organizations under the umbrella of GEM4. These funds are being used for:

organization of major symposia/conferences specifically targeted at the theme areas of the initiative,
training grants for student fellowships for the partner institutions,
summer schools to develop teaching materials,
the exchange of students and researchers,
operations of a central secretariat for handling the administrative and infrastructure details for such interactions,
maintenance of a web site for dissemination of information.

GEM4 Online

15.389A Global Entrepreneurship Lab: Asia-Pacific enables teams of students to work with the top management of global start-ups and gain experience in running, and consulting to, a new enterprise outside the United States. The focus is on start-ups operating in emerging markets throughout the world, with a special focus on the Asia-Pacific region. The course combines an internship in a growing firm with in-class discussions of the issues and policies that affect the climate for innovation and start-up success around the world.
Special Features
15.389A is part of a two-section course and includes materials that cover entrepreneurship in the Asia-Pacific region. 15.389B Global Entrepreneurship Lab: Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa is also available on OpenCourseWare and covers topics pertinent to these additional regions.

15.389B Global Entrepreneurship Lab: Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa enables teams of students to work with the top management of global start-ups and gain experience in running, and consulting to, a new enterprise outside the United States. The focus is on start-ups operating in emerging markets throughout the world, with a special focus on Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. The course combines an internship in a growing firm with in-class discussions of the issues and policies that affect the climate for innovation and start-up success around the world.
Special Features
15.389B is part of a two-section course and includes materials that cover entrepreneurship in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. 15.389A Global Entrepreneurship Lab: Asia-Pacific is also available on OpenCourseWare and covers topics pertinent to these additional regions.

For the first time in history, the global demand for freshwater is overtaking its supply in many parts of the world. The U.N. predicts that by 2025, more than half of the countries in the world will be experiencing water stress or outright shortages. Lack of water can cause disease, food shortages, starvation, migrations, political conflict, and even lead to war. Models of cooperation, both historic and contemporary, show the way forward. The first half of the course details the multiple facets of the water crisis. Topics include water systems, water transfers, dams, pollution, climate change, scarcity, water conflict/cooperation, food security, and agriculture. The second half of the course describes innovative solutions: Adaptive technologies and adaptation through policy, planning, management, economic tools, and finally, human behaviors required to preserve this precious and imperiled resource. Several field trips to water/wastewater/biosolids reuse and water-energy sites will help us to better comprehend both local and international challenges and solutions.

This course will explore innovations in information systems for health care delivery in developing countries, and focus not only on the importance of technology, but also on broader issues necessary for its success, such as quality improvement, project management, and leadership skills. 
This course is targeted toward individuals interested in designing or implementing a health information and communication technology (ICT) solution in the developing world. Implementing a health information technology project requires multidisciplinary teams. Thus, with this course, we hope to bring together individuals from a variety of disciplines—computer science, medicine, engineering, public health, policy, and business.
What you’ll learn:

Global health burden
Design thinking
Health informatics
Software development process
Evaluation and monitoring

This course is part of the Open Learning Library, which is free to use. You have the option to sign up and enroll in the course if you want to track your progress, or you can view and use all the materials without enrolling.

In this three-day workshop, students will get a broad introduction to global health issues. We will look at one particular non-governmental organization in India that works to improve health across the lifespan by empowering existing community resources to provide appropriate physical, psychological and social therapies, focusing on child development, adolescent and youth health, mental health, and chronic disease. This workshop equips student to explore novel ideas and technologies with an inspiring and ground-breaking Indian NGO.
Fulfills the Sloan Innovation Period (SIP) elective requirement. SIP occurs at the midpoint of each semester providing students with an intensive week of experiential leadership learning, as well as exposure to groundbreaking faculty work. It allows students to engage in intellectual exploration outside the classroom. SIP degree requirements include core courses in ethics and leadership as well as electives.

This course pairs faculty-mentored student teams with enterprises on the front lines of health care delivery in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. To tackle specific barriers identified by each partnering organization, the course is built around custom-designed projects in strategy, business model innovation, operations, marketing, and technology. Class sessions include interactive cases, practical exercises, and lively conversations with experts, all designed to support project work before, during, and after the intensive two-week onsite collaboration with entrepreneurs, leaders, staff, and stakeholders in the setting. Course assignments include a portfolio of host deliverable, a foundational toolkit designed to support each project, and a distillation of learning from the field.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks is given to Imperial Health Sciences, Unjani Clinic and L V Prasad Eye Institute for allowing their organizations to be featured in the sample student projects on this course site.

This course will study the question of Global Architecture from the point of view of producing a set of lectures on that subject. The course will be run in the form of a writing seminar, except that students will be asked to prepare for the final class an hour-long lecture for an undergraduate survey course. During the semester, students will study the debates about where to locate “the global” and do some comparative analysis of various textbooks. The topic of the final lecture will be worked on during the semester. For that lecture, students will be asked to identify the themes of the survey course, and hand in the bibliography and reading list for their lecture.

This course examines the opportunities and risks firms face in today’s global world. The course provides conceptual tools for analyzing how governments and a variety of social and economic institutions influence competition among firms embedded in different national settings. Public policies and institutions that shape competitive outcomes are examined through cases and analytic readings on different companies and industries operating in both developed and emerging markets.  In addition to traditional case/class discussions, this course will include some presentations by various guest speakers. The hope is that greater exposure to/interaction with these real-world practitioners will “bring to life” some of the issues discussed in the readings/cases. Whenever possible, informal dinners and/or coffees will be organized for small groups of students interested in meeting with our guest speakers.