Episode 20: Richard Lyons
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Changemaker: Why Creating Hubs for Academic and Commercial Collaboration Matters
What are the steps to fostering collaboration in the academe, firms, industries, and organizations? Professor Richard Lyons, UC Berkeley's Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer, talks about his new position and new learnings. He discusses how the university is working to create an interface zone where ideas can be co-developed into commercial applications.
Hear how the university's Changemaker project encourages critical thinking, collaboration, and communication as essential factors in achieving that sense of agency in life. Be sure to listen to the end to hear his advice on how to maintain a good balance in creating a research-driven program. Along with host Greg LaBlanc, they discuss avoiding an intensively commoditized transmission of learning. The episode concludes with ideas about how a traditional setup of universities can be combined with the delivery of online content to maximize their role as knowledge creation and discovery centers.
Episode Quotes:
What is the Berkeley Changemaker?
“Berkeley has been involved in change in society for a long time. So, it doesn't surprise anybody to see those two words together at Berkeley. Then we put together a course, called the Berkeley Changemaker. It’s really about critical thinking, collaboration, and communication —things that are fundamental ingredients to that idea of agency in life.”
How can universities think more intentionally about interfacing with the commercial world when it comes to idea generation?
"There's this idea that there is a transfer point. That the idea ends here and the application starts there. It's like, no, it's not a line - all the magic is in that interval between early conception and ultimate application or benefit to society. I think every university is thinking more about how do we create this interface zone so that we can co-develop ideas a bit more further."
How do you make the connection between what the students need and what the research priorities of the university are?
“By having this kind of platform, where we can pull people in from the humanities, social sciences, STEM fields, professional schools, and each of them has a little different view on what is critical thinking and what collaboration means. And how does it happen? Then to what use do we put it. It feels like it's creating an even richer bundle than if we had at a single department in what we have in Berkeley Changemaker.”
Show Links:
Guest’s Profile:
Richard Lyons Profile at Berkeley
Richard Lyons on Twitter @richlyons
Richard Lyons on LinkedIn
Programs and references Mentioned in the Episode: