This month, the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation is opening in the newly constructed Jacobs Hall at the northeast corner of campus next to Soda Hall. With 24,000 square feet, five design studios and access to the latest equipment for rapid prototyping and fabrication, Jacobs Hall will help provide enough space to let ideas loose.
Starting this fall, the Sutardja Center and Jacobs Institute are now set up to work collaboratively to serve students together in a complementary manner.
Said, Ikhlaq Sidhu, SCET’s Chief scientist and Founding Director, “I am very excited about the thought leadership of the Jacob’s Institute. The Jacob’s model pushes the innovation boundary in both a user-centric domain as well as technology-centric limitations in parallel, which is well beyond the traditional approaches that we have seen so far in design pedagogy.”
Many Sutardja Center courses will be held in the Jacobs Institute, which brings together entrepreneurial technical students with those interested in design. Building on naturally complementary teaching models, the SCET will focus on offering entrepreneurial networks and development of an entrepreneurial mindset. While Jacobs Institute will add a pedagogy of design thinking, user needs, and hands-on prototyping. And, of course, both will contribute to team skills and technology development.
