Applied Innovation

International Business Development (IBD) arranges consulting projects with a variety of for-profit and nonprofit clients. Students work in small teams with clients throughout the spring semester and then for three weeks each summer in various countries. 

Students engage in a major strategy consultation project for a nonprofit, public organization, or select social enterprise in partnership with a major consulting firm. See examples of Social Sector projects.

In Cleantech to Market (C2M), students work with scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to evaluate the commercial viability of new technologies. C2M develops the next generation of energy leaders capable of addressing critical energy and climate change issues. 

Students learn a structured approach to a business challenge that combines best-of-breed of design thinking, innovation strategy, and entrepreneurship in a course that takes place at THNK School of Creative Leadership in Amsterdam. 

Students gain skills that allow them to create innovative products, aimed at addressing a social problem in a developing country and using collaborative team-based techniques. MBA students work closely with counterparts within engineering fields across UC Berkeley, using applied science to create novel solutions.

In this introductory course in real estate investment analysis, students examine real cases. The primary deliverable is a comprehensive analysis that includes concept development, full market analysis, funding strategy, and entitlement and stakeholder consultation and approval strategies. Several working teams of five to six students focus on different aspects of the project. The course deliverables are the product of extensive face-to-face interactions with stakeholders, real estate professionals, design professionals, and capital market providers. A number of the stakeholders play an active role in the vetting and approval process for the final written group project and presentation.

Haas@Work sends teams of Berkeley MBA students to work with top executives at major firms, such as Visa, Virgin America, Cisco, Disney, Panasonic, Clorox, and Wells Fargo. Students research and develop solutions for a competitive challenge posed by the firm. The best ideas are then selected for student implementation by the firm's executives.

As the first and largest student-managed socially responsible investment fund within a leading business school, the Sustainable Investment Fund at Haas offers our MBA students real-world experience in delivering both strong financial returns and positive social impact. The student principals have more than doubled the initial investment to +$3M since 2008, learning through experience about SRI and ESG investment strategies and practices.

This course provides real world, hands-on learning on what it’s like to actually start a high-tech company. The goal is to create an entrepreneurial experience where students are exposed to all of the pressures and demands of the real world in an early stage start-up. Teams use a business model to brainstorm each part of a company and customer development to get out of the classroom to see whether anyone would use the product. Finally, based on the feedback gathered, teams rapidly iterate the product to build something that customers would use and buy.

This class strives to create conditions where students become social venture designers, founders, and leaders, working in interdisciplinary teams at an accelerated pace to practice the steps integral to starting a social venture. The course uses the Lean Launchpad and Social Blueprint Business Design methodologies to frame insights, strategies, and practices that distinguish social ventures, such as vision & values, innovative company legal structures, constitutional documents, stakeholder enrollment, business model design, and social impact assessment.