FOR STUDENTS
Spring 2025 Roundtables:
Entrepreneurship for the Idealist
April 29 at 4PM
Venue: MIT 32-124
Can Social Change-makers make the World Just?
May 20 at 4PM
Venue: MIT 32-124
Speaker/ Moderator: Manish Bhardwaj
Director of Design for Innovation Program in humanities and social sciences, Keller Center, Princeton University
Manish directs Keller Center’s Design for Innovation program for faculty in the humanities and social sciences. He was previously the James Wei Visiting Professor at Keller, where he taught idealism in entrepreneurship. Manish is the CEO and co-founder of Innovators In Health, which is devoted to delivering world-class healthcare to the rural poor in India. Manish is also a Fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. Manish believes that a venture to make the world more just is fundamentally a moral, not technical, undertaking. It requires cultivating a moral imagination, an ability to imagine why people do right or wrong, the root of empathy, itself the root of all enduring change. He believes that accompaniment, to stand with the marginalized, literally and figuratively, is a moral imperative, and in and of itself a powerful means of change.
Public Service Fellowship
Davis Projects for Peace $10,000 Fellowship
Davis Projects for Peace offers a $10,000 fellowship for an MIT undergraduate student project that promotes peace. The aim is to “encourage and support today’s motivated youth to create and try out their own ideas for building peace.” Projects must be implemented during the summer of 2023.
Successful past projects have focused on:
- fostering empathy
- promoting cross-cultural understanding
- revitalization of post-conflict and post-disaster communities
- justice and fair processes
FOR STUDENTS
Davis Projects for Peace $10,000 Fellowship
Deadline to apply for summer funding: Monday, January 23, noonDavis Projects for Peace offers a $10,000 fellowship for an MIT undergraduate student project that promotes peace. The aim is to “encourage and support today’s motivated youth to create and try out their own ideas for building peace.” Projects must be implemented during the summer of 2023.
Successful past projects have focused on:
- fostering empathy
- promoting cross-cultural understanding
- revitalization of post-conflict and post-disaster communities
- justice and fair processes
Looking for inspiration?
Read a profile of MIT’s 2018 recipient here
MIT Classes for Spring 2023: Entrepreneurship for the Idealist
How is the world made just?
The mission of this class is to inspire and prepare students to undertake the work of making the world just. We will start by exploring the nature of a just world – what ideals must you commit yourself to, and why? How are those ideals reconciled with the constraints the world ‘as it is’ imposes? Next, we will examine a variety of injustices so we can ably deconstruct their structures, dynamics and myth-making. This will yield initial insights into how to dismantle injustice. We will then analyze what role technology, markets and entrepreneurship have to play. If problems of justice are problems of right and wrong, then are instrumental approaches tangential to our quest? We will examine social entrepreneurship in particular to ensure that its means and ends are just. Finally, we will study accompaniment – journeying with the wronged until right is done, and explore its moral and tactical power and success in countering a variety of injustices.
Course Information
OTHER COURSES OFFERED AT MIT:
In related fields through various departments.
MIT LEAD and other leadership programs through Division of Student Life
Think. Apply. Impact: Ethics as Optimization
STS.085 Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier
24.231 Ethics
15.269 Literature, Ethics, and Authority
15.270 Ethical Practice: Professionalism, Social Responsibility, and the Purpose of the Corporation
17.391J Human Rights in Theory and Practice
21L.450 The Ethics of Leadership
HST.590 Biomedical Engineering Seminar Series
STS.006J Bioethics
USEFUL LINKS:
Justice with Michael Sandel
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Ethics in Science
Chicago Journals Ethics
US Senate Ethics Committee
MIT Open CourseWare
Disclaimer: These links are listed here as a resource.The Center at MIT does not endorse any website, organizations, opinions, or point of view.
Click here to see a list of upcoming events and programs.
Davis Projects for Peace $10,000 Fellowship
- fostering empathy
- promoting cross-cultural understanding
- revitalization of post-conflict and post-disaster communities
- justice and fair processes
Looking for inspiration?
Read a profile of MIT’s 2018 recipient here
Questions? Want feedback on your ideas? Email Alison at hynd@mit.edu
Entrepreneurship for the Idealist
How is the world made just?
The mission of this class is to inspire and prepare students to undertake the work of making the world just. We will start by exploring the nature of a just world – what ideals must you commit yourself to, and why? How are those ideals reconciled with the constraints the world ‘as it is’ imposes? Next, we will examine a variety of injustices so we can ably deconstruct their structures, dynamics and myth-making. This will yield initial insights into how to dismantle injustice. We will then analyze what role technology, markets and entrepreneurship have to play. If problems of justice are problems of right and wrong, then are instrumental approaches tangential to our quest? We will examine social entrepreneurship in particular to ensure that its means and ends are just. Finally, we will study accompaniment – journeying with the wronged until right is done, and explore its moral and tactical power and success in countering a variety of injustices.
Project
Students will select an issue they want to work on, e.g., poverty, climate change, polarization, etc. They will research and analyze previous approaches, and then propose interventions of their own.
Course Information
INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES:
Interested in help make meaningful impact? Explore internship opportunities at The Center. Send an email.
OTHER COURSES OFFERED AT MIT:
(In related fields through various departments)
MIT LEAD and other leadership programs through Division of Student Life
Think. Apply. Impact: Ethics as Optimization
STS.085 Ethics and the Law on the Electronic Frontier
24.231 Ethics
15.269 Literature, Ethics, and Authority
15.270 Ethical Practice: Professionalism, Social Responsibility, and the Purpose of the Corporation
17.391J Human Rights in Theory and Practice
21L.450 The Ethics of Leadership
HST.590 Biomedical Engineering Seminar Series
STS.006J Bioethics
USEFUL LINKS:
Justice with Michael Sandel
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Ethics in Science
Chicago Journals Ethics
US Senate Ethics Committee
MIT Open CourseWare
Disclaimer: These links are listed here as a resource.The Center at MIT does not endorse any website, organizations, opinions, or point of view.
Click here to see a list of upcoming events and programs.
