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PRATT INSTITUTE
DxD: DIFFERENTIATE by DESIGN
No.3a Insights Speaking of Design, Innovation Fund, Solar Panels, Preserving Plastic, Pratt Young Scholars, and more.
Innovation comes in many forms. It can take the shape of easier-to-use personal-care product packaging. It can stem from adapting an existing technology to a novel purpose. It can develop from collaborating with colleagues across campus to create new knowledge about how we see the world and our place in it. Regardless of its origin, innovative ideas require research and testing before they can make an impact on the world. Building on its strengths in design, Pratt has developed a new model for research and design that is fostering innovation and jump-starting crossdisciplinary initiatives across campus. Central to that model is the Pratt Innovation Fund, which provides seed grants to support collaborative faculty and staff research projects. By providing such funding, the Institute is encouraging faculty and staff to take a risk in experimenting with an idea that could likely lead to change in a process, program, or course offering that would have a measurable impact at Pratt. Faculty and staff at all levels across the Institute are invited to submit proposals. In the Innovation Fund’s first year, projects were reviewed by a distinguished panel of judges: Pratt alumnus Jay Crawford (B.I.D. ’75), director of Global Personal Care Packaging for Colgate-Palmolive; Ligia Cravo, senior program officer at the Hearst Foundation; Cliff Kuang, senior editor of Wired; Joshua Schneps, co-publisher of Schneps Communications; Denmark West, advisor of Unified Media, Inc.; and Ron Worthy, chief executive officer of Buzzworthy Media Ventures, LLC. The recipients of the inaugural 2013–14 Innovation Fund grants are featured in the pages that follow. As you will see, research at Pratt comes in many forms—each of which reflects the tremendous possibilities inherent in the dynamic creative community that is Pratt Institute.
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