Events – Page 3 – This Week @ MIIS

Join Us For Some LEGO Serious Play Prototyping!

Events, MIIS Update August 31, 2015

The DLC recently acquired ten, yes 10! LEGO SERIOUS PLAY™ lego kits and we are looking for some ideas and feedback about how we might make them available to the MIIS Community as a rapid prototyping tool.

Perhaps you’ve seen the great Lego movie and know the lyrics to “Everything is Awesome”? Perhaps you read about the thirteen year old who prototyped a braille printer with legos and went on to receive angel investment to bring his idea to market? Or maybe you heard about the robotic prosthetic arm built with LEGO?

LEGOS can be used for so many things!

Join us this Friday, September 4, from 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m for some seriously awesome LEGO protoyping fun. It’s part “get to know the Digital Learning Commons,” and part “come play with Legos!” Join us!

Drop in anytime between 10:00 and 2:00 and receive a prompt to build your own world out of legos. This Friday, we will be looking toward the future. Imagine the transformation you will experience from the beginning to the end of your experience in grad school, and create it out of legos!

Share your transformative journey with others through legos, and see what your fellow classmates can dream up as well.

While you’re here, we’ll tell you more about what you can get from the “Center of Concentrated Awesomeness”— the Digital Learning Commons.

You will be able to meet our staff, learn about our recording booths, see our brand new Macs, and get a tour of both the upstairs “Consultation Space” and our downstairs “Design Sp@ce.”

Coffee and snacks will be available.

LEGO SERIOUS PLAY™ is a facilitated thinking, communication and problem solving technique for use with organizations, teams and individuals. It draws on extensive research from the fields of business, organazation development, psychology and learning, and is based on the concept of “hand knowledge,” where your mind learns best and retains most when you are actively involved with what you are trying to learn. (“The hand bone is connected to the brain bone.”)

More information is found in our Serious Play Guidebooks.

Come to the DLC on Friday to learn more, and PLAY! (Seriously.)

Throwback Thursday: DPMI Rwanda 2015

Marisol Moran DPMI, Events, MIIS Update June 11, 2015

Check out this great footage from DPMI alum Anissa Bensaid during her time in DPMI Rwanda. What do you think about DPMI Rwanda? Let us know your thoughts!

DPMI Kenya Course Focuses on Designing Solution Strategies for Local Systems

Carolyn Meyer Events, Immersive Learning (MIIS & External Ops), MIIS Update, Stories From the Field June 8, 2015

Group includes 13 wonderfully diverse participants from seven countries

Update from Nairobi, Kenya: We are halfway through our 8-day certificate training jointly offered by the Locus Network and the Program on Design, Partnering, Management and Innovation (DPMI) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS).

Participant Profiles

The group includes 13 participants from seven countries (Kenya, Nigeria, Niger, South Africa, the Philippines, Venezuela, and the United States). Participants include Locus Network members from Pact, MIIS graduate students, and other international development practitioners. One Locus participant commented, “I’ve enjoyed meeting others in the group, and it has been a tremendous opportunity to learn from Dr. Beryl Levinger given her decades of experience in international development and teaching.”

Training Highlights

The goal of the training is for participants to build skills to promote local system approaches to sustainable development. It’s a hands-on approach where participants work in small groups to directly apply the tool or framework presented.

Last week the group delved into discussions on the value of social capital and local solutions and applied concepts and tools including: network analysis, causal loop mapping, results frameworks, problem trees, and intervention design.

This week (our final week) the group will cover logframes, indicators, and design-thinking. On our final day, groups will present their designs for a “local solution” to a development challenge through 15-minute presentations to a panel of local social change practitioners.

Out and About in Nairobi

In the spirit of building social capital, the group spent the weekend visiting the Nairobi National Park, the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, the Bomas of Kenya, a Masai market, and a boat ride on Lake Nivasha.

Thanks to Aga Khan

We want to send a big “Thank You” to the Aga Khan Graduate School of Media and Communications and DPMI co-instructor, Matt Reeves, Aga Khan Senior Global Advisor for Civil Society, for hosting the training in the executive training classrooms at the 9West building in Westlands,Nairobi.

About the DPMI Training

A 2-week certificate program that focuses on designing local solutions to important development challenges. Participants master the essentials of project design including the construction of problem trees, logical frameworks, results frameworks, systems maps, and the selection of strong indicators for effective monitoring. Participants also develop proficiency with a broad set of tools to engage stakeholders, map networks, promote strategic partnering, and facilitate important conversations linked to development outcomes.

Want to participate?

We’re pleased to announce that we will have DPMI trainings in Monterey, Rwanda, Kenya, and DC in 2016. If you would like to learn more about the DPMI program, please contact Carolyn Meyer at cmeyer@miis.edu. You can follow us on twitter at @MIISDPMI or visit http://go.miis.edu/dpmi.

MIIS Professors and Alumni Publish Book on Shanghai’s Pilot Free Trade Zone

Sherry Sybertz Events, Journals/Publications, MIIS Update June 2, 2015

MIIS GSIPM professors Robert Rogowsky (trade and development) and Lijuan Zhang (economics), along with several MIIS students and alumni recently published an e- book titled China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone: An Experiment in Economic Reform. The MIIS students and alumni involved in the project included:

Malori DiPierro,

Shuyi Deng

Jiao Xu

Oscar Grijalva

Haibin Ren

Sharon O’Kello

Yongbin Jiang

Mrinalini Patnaik

The book is a compilation of several student research projects that discusses the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in the context of economic reform in China. The FTZ represents a new era of trade and financial liberalization in China. Themes analyzed throughout the book include foreign banks, American life insurers, money laundering risks, business-government relations, intellectual property rights, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, and policy implications. The authors want to show how the new eleven-square-mile area will affect both local Chinese companies and multinational corporations business. A free download of the e-book is available here: HERE

Summer Lunchin’

Melissa Sorenson Events May 26, 2015

We love digital learning, but sometimes you just need to eat lunch! Bring your lunch and join us at the Holland Center on Wednesdays at 1:00pm. When the weather is nice we will be sitting outside on the patio, otherwise we will be inside at the tables. Come meet new people, discuss your summer adventures, and enjoy the beautiful outdoors. Open to faculty, staff, students, and friends!

Look for the bright blue sign!

Blogging for Summer Adventures

Melissa Sorenson Events May 11, 2015

Wednesday, May 13th, 12:00-1:00pm in the Design Space

Join us this Wednesday to get your blog set up for summer! We will help you create a blog, pick a theme, and share tips and tricks for how you can bring your audience along with you on your summer adventures. Whether you plan to blog for personal or professional reasons, we can make sure you are set to hit the ground running once summer starts!

Spring Cleaning!

About Us, Events May 6, 2015

Last chance to keep your Spring 2015 files!

It’s the end of the semester, and the DLC is getting ready to clear our computers of the various files that have accumulated during the semester. If you have saved any files on the DLC computers (this includes recording booths!) please come retrieve those files soon.

The computers will be wiped on May 29th, 2015.

Mark Your Calendars: East Asia Presentations this Thursday!

Katya Gamolsky About, Courses, Events, Immersive Learning (MIIS & External Ops), Middlebury, MIIS Update, News, Practica, Stories From the Field, Student Accomplishments May 4, 2015

Presentations at Irvine Auditorium this Thursday, May 7th, 6:30-8:30pm, Reception 8:30-9:30pm!

east asia

The students that went on the first ever two-country program through MIIS Immersive Learning Programs, the East Asia: China and Japan trip, will be presenting this Thursday at Irvine, with a wine and hors d’oeuvres reception to follow. The presentations will be very interesting as this program included a semester long seminar which concluded in robust papers, and the feedback from the journey has been very interesting!

The East Asia Practicum was an investigative tour of Tokyo, Japan and Beijing, China, where participants met with and interviewed policymakers, former politicians, and renowned scholars. With unique research topics looking into the the international relations of the region, students were able to seek first-hand information on the dynamics of the two major players: Japan and China. The rise in status of either nation will set the political and economic tone for the region. By experiencing and researching within each nation, students will be able to provide original ideas on the current state of Sino-Japanese relations and the future of region.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/466841256799447/

Carry a Flag at Spring Commencement 2015!

Maria Osorio Events, MIIS Update April 20, 2015

The Office of Student Services is looking for volunteer flag carriers in the upcoming Spring Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, May 16th. All graduating students’ countries of citizenship will be represented in a colorful procession of flags that celebrates the diversity of our student body.

Continuing students, staff and friends/family: this is a great opportunity to cheer on our graduates! Flag carriers will have reserved seating at the commencement ceremony. Please note: graduating students are NOT eligible to carry a flag as they are already accounted for otherwise in the Commencement procession.

There will be 27 flags in the procession, available on a first-come, first-served basis. If your first choice is not available, please be willing to carry another flag! To view availability and sign-up to volunteer, visit go.miis.edu/flag.

Volunteers will be required to attend a 1-hour rehearsal the morning of Commencement—details on the process, rehearsal, etc. will be sent to all volunteers.

Thank you, we look forward to your participation!