WEBVTT 00:00:05.960 --> 00:00:09.350 ANJALI SASTRY: I've been teaching at MIT since 2001. 00:00:09.350 --> 00:00:11.960 And I've taught all kinds of classes. 00:00:11.960 --> 00:00:15.350 But the innovation I'm excited to be talking about today is 00:00:15.350 --> 00:00:21.410 a new set of linked projects that I helped our mid-career 00:00:21.410 --> 00:00:24.440 executive students-- the Sloan Fellow MBAs-- 00:00:24.440 --> 00:00:26.660 on this past year. 00:00:26.660 --> 00:00:29.930 So I hung up my shingle and asked 00:00:29.930 --> 00:00:34.820 students who had a passion for linking technology 00:00:34.820 --> 00:00:38.360 with social impact in some way to come and talk to me. 00:00:38.360 --> 00:00:42.170 And I created with them a set of projects 00:00:42.170 --> 00:00:45.710 which allowed the students to really dig into areas that they 00:00:45.710 --> 00:00:49.550 came to MIT passionate about, but also 00:00:49.550 --> 00:00:53.752 to link it to their coursework and their degree program. 00:00:53.752 --> 00:00:55.460 SARAH HANSEN: Could you talk a little bit 00:00:55.460 --> 00:00:58.472 about some of the specific projects that students did? 00:00:58.472 --> 00:00:59.930 ANJALI SASTRY: The project students 00:00:59.930 --> 00:01:03.500 did ranged greatly but all had as a theme 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:05.390 using what they were learning here 00:01:05.390 --> 00:01:11.150 and tapping into emerging or existing technology in new ways 00:01:11.150 --> 00:01:15.230 to find solutions to problems that face many. 00:01:15.230 --> 00:01:18.560 That's the social impact aspect of it. 00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:21.440 And it took with each student some effort 00:01:21.440 --> 00:01:26.480 to really map out a good enough and focused enough question 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:29.180 that was doable as an independent study 00:01:29.180 --> 00:01:33.440 project and that was deep enough to allow me to really bring 00:01:33.440 --> 00:01:38.430 to bear the educational goals that I had for the projects. 00:01:38.430 --> 00:01:40.790 So one student, Doreen, was really 00:01:40.790 --> 00:01:46.610 interested in the problem of creating agricultural products 00:01:46.610 --> 00:01:51.620 in Africa using crops and products that are 00:01:51.620 --> 00:01:53.960 grown right there in Africa. 00:01:53.960 --> 00:01:57.980 Why is Africa importing a lot of consumer products 00:01:57.980 --> 00:02:02.570 when the continent has a lot of agricultural assets? 00:02:02.570 --> 00:02:05.240 So she was really interested in understanding-- 00:02:05.240 --> 00:02:08.120 what are the business models, what are the constraints, what 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:11.090 are the opportunities when it comes to finding 00:02:11.090 --> 00:02:14.420 new ways to create locally sourced products that could 00:02:14.420 --> 00:02:17.420 actually serve beauty, nutrition, 00:02:17.420 --> 00:02:20.540 or other needs in her native Zimbabwe 00:02:20.540 --> 00:02:22.850 or elsewhere in Africa. 00:02:22.850 --> 00:02:25.970 I'll tell you about another project. 00:02:25.970 --> 00:02:30.020 Idoia, a student who came to me after deep experience 00:02:30.020 --> 00:02:33.560 at the World Bank, was really interested in a challenge 00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:36.530 that traditional governmental organizations really 00:02:36.530 --> 00:02:37.760 wrestle with. 00:02:37.760 --> 00:02:39.540 How do we tap into entrepreneurship 00:02:39.540 --> 00:02:41.670 when we're trying to serve the public good? 00:02:41.670 --> 00:02:47.000 There seems to be a challenge in linking the entrepreneur 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.190 and the public sector. 00:02:49.190 --> 00:02:52.100 And we know that there are all kinds of innovations 00:02:52.100 --> 00:02:55.010 that play in this sphere. 00:02:55.010 --> 00:02:59.300 From ridesharing and regulated industries, 00:02:59.300 --> 00:03:02.690 all the way through to providing in a better way the services 00:03:02.690 --> 00:03:04.640 that governments are already on the hook for. 00:03:04.640 --> 00:03:07.130 So they're either regulated or they 00:03:07.130 --> 00:03:12.208 are substitutes for improvements of services 00:03:12.208 --> 00:03:13.250 that governments provide. 00:03:13.250 --> 00:03:17.210 And sometimes they're also missing services. 00:03:17.210 --> 00:03:19.220 What are the barriers to this? 00:03:19.220 --> 00:03:20.570 Where are the opportunities? 00:03:20.570 --> 00:03:22.130 What are the trends? 00:03:22.130 --> 00:03:25.100 And can we actually map out where 00:03:25.100 --> 00:03:29.060 we think this field could go, of mixing entrepreneurship 00:03:29.060 --> 00:03:30.770 and the public sector? 00:03:30.770 --> 00:03:36.440 One of my students, Aline, came to MIT completely on fire 00:03:36.440 --> 00:03:40.820 with this idea of tapping into analytics and AI 00:03:40.820 --> 00:03:44.510 to solve what she saw as a major challenge 00:03:44.510 --> 00:03:49.310 when it came to bringing finance to small holder and small scale 00:03:49.310 --> 00:03:50.450 farmers. 00:03:50.450 --> 00:03:53.090 She's an expert on agricultural finance. 00:03:53.090 --> 00:03:57.230 And she realized that, in her native Brazil and elsewhere, 00:03:57.230 --> 00:04:00.920 people who didn't have good credit standing and good credit 00:04:00.920 --> 00:04:02.330 records-- 00:04:02.330 --> 00:04:04.610 farmers who didn't have those assets-- 00:04:04.610 --> 00:04:08.810 couldn't get loans and were forever locked out. 00:04:08.810 --> 00:04:12.230 So there's a big dichotomy between the people who have 00:04:12.230 --> 00:04:15.230 access to finance and those who don't. 00:04:15.230 --> 00:04:18.560 Could she break down that barrier in some way? 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:23.250 Could new forms of data and technology help do that? 00:04:23.250 --> 00:04:26.840 So instead of relying only on somebody's credit record, 00:04:26.840 --> 00:04:31.250 could you look at the weather, their farming choices, 00:04:31.250 --> 00:04:34.670 their behaviors, and physical data, 00:04:34.670 --> 00:04:36.830 and use it to come up with a better 00:04:36.830 --> 00:04:40.670 assessment of the riskiness of a given farmer from the lender's 00:04:40.670 --> 00:04:41.750 point of view? 00:04:41.750 --> 00:04:43.520 Slightly technical area. 00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:46.580 But it actually has huge implications 00:04:46.580 --> 00:04:49.850 because it could open the door to all kinds of folks 00:04:49.850 --> 00:04:53.660 who are excluded from traditional finance 00:04:53.660 --> 00:04:56.960 by providing other methods of sorting out 00:04:56.960 --> 00:05:01.770 their riskiness and their credit worthiness. 00:05:01.770 --> 00:05:03.960 SARAH HANSEN: So how did it all work logistically? 00:05:03.960 --> 00:05:08.490 How did you manage to create all these different individual 00:05:08.490 --> 00:05:09.930 projects? 00:05:09.930 --> 00:05:13.200 ANJALI SASTRY: So that's the downside of this approach. 00:05:13.200 --> 00:05:15.240 Each project was customized. 00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:19.450 It's kind of a boutique learning experience in a sense. 00:05:19.450 --> 00:05:21.030 And one of the things I've learned 00:05:21.030 --> 00:05:24.060 about trying to innovate when it comes to teaching 00:05:24.060 --> 00:05:25.950 is you have to be willing to invest 00:05:25.950 --> 00:05:27.720 a lot the first few rounds-- 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:29.610 the first few years you do something. 00:05:29.610 --> 00:05:31.380 And then over time, you learn how 00:05:31.380 --> 00:05:35.930 to make it a little more efficient, streamlined, 00:05:35.930 --> 00:05:40.020 and maybe scalable, and more cost effective. 00:05:40.020 --> 00:05:43.080 But this year was definitely a labor of love. 00:05:43.080 --> 00:05:46.290 So students came to me with all kinds of ideas. 00:05:46.290 --> 00:05:47.890 And I had open office hours. 00:05:47.890 --> 00:05:50.370 I have a wiki page where students 00:05:50.370 --> 00:05:54.060 can sign up to meet with me in 20 minute increments. 00:05:54.060 --> 00:05:59.160 And I would just set up hours of these meetings every week 00:05:59.160 --> 00:06:02.400 and sit and talk to students about their ideas, 00:06:02.400 --> 00:06:06.870 try to formulate some reasonable next steps, 00:06:06.870 --> 00:06:09.090 really push them to think about how they're 00:06:09.090 --> 00:06:13.590 using their coursework here and their presence on campus 00:06:13.590 --> 00:06:16.890 to craft something they couldn't do anywhere else 00:06:16.890 --> 00:06:18.390 and that spoke to everything else 00:06:18.390 --> 00:06:21.060 they had access to while they were here. 00:06:21.060 --> 00:06:23.940 So that process took a lot of back and forth. 00:06:23.940 --> 00:06:27.090 Usually, I would meet with students once a week. 00:06:27.090 --> 00:06:30.090 I opened a shared folder with each of them 00:06:30.090 --> 00:06:33.870 and would shoot materials that I found into the folder 00:06:33.870 --> 00:06:38.160 and have them load their drafts, work plans, and other work 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:40.140 in progress there. 00:06:40.140 --> 00:06:46.470 And then I also got into a very quick habit 00:06:46.470 --> 00:06:50.700 of sending any interesting reading, news article, 00:06:50.700 --> 00:06:52.890 conference notice directly to the students. 00:06:52.890 --> 00:06:56.700 So some of them would be getting 10 emails from me a week. 00:06:56.700 --> 00:06:58.680 But that really got us going because they 00:06:58.680 --> 00:07:03.090 could see I was thinking about it all week, and they were too. 00:07:03.090 --> 00:07:06.120 I learned I had to keep a whiteboard up in my office with 00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:10.020 each project and each person, because I had over a dozen 00:07:10.020 --> 00:07:14.160 running, to keep them straight and try to remember who's doing 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:17.160 what so that when I saw it-- when I came into the office-- 00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:19.410 that person would be on my mind, or that project 00:07:19.410 --> 00:07:20.960 would be on my mind. 00:07:20.960 --> 00:07:22.710 SARAH HANSEN: Do you see this as something 00:07:22.710 --> 00:07:25.567 that is potentially scalable in the future? 00:07:25.567 --> 00:07:26.400 ANJALI SASTRY: I do. 00:07:26.400 --> 00:07:28.192 One question I've been thinking about a lot 00:07:28.192 --> 00:07:30.630 is how you could also use peers. 00:07:30.630 --> 00:07:35.820 Could we craft project clusters? 00:07:35.820 --> 00:07:38.160 So could we link the themes? 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:41.700 But could we also have students helping each other, coaching 00:07:41.700 --> 00:07:43.500 each other a little bit? 00:07:43.500 --> 00:07:49.110 Could we use group meetings as a way to surface a helpful 00:07:49.110 --> 00:07:52.620 discussion about what's working and what isn't? 00:07:52.620 --> 00:07:54.550 I think that that's the next step. 00:07:54.550 --> 00:07:57.870 So I think that will get to some scalability. 00:07:57.870 --> 00:08:00.000 I do think-- mundane as it sounds-- 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:04.680 I think it's also important to have good forms and paperwork. 00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:08.970 Having people really articulate in writing briefly 00:08:08.970 --> 00:08:12.780 what they want to do and having a structured kind of update 00:08:12.780 --> 00:08:14.490 process really helps. 00:08:14.490 --> 00:08:17.790 Keep the momentum, and build the focus. 00:08:17.790 --> 00:08:20.910 SARAH HANSEN: How do you measure success in projects like this? 00:08:20.910 --> 00:08:22.493 ANJALI SASTRY: That's a great question 00:08:22.493 --> 00:08:27.480 because students who are following their passions really 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:28.560 get into it. 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:33.450 You give them enough freedom, they will have a good time. 00:08:33.450 --> 00:08:37.620 But part of our challenge as their teachers 00:08:37.620 --> 00:08:42.030 is to help make sure that we're embedding into their approach 00:08:42.030 --> 00:08:46.710 enough rigor, that we're looking at the data and the evidence, 00:08:46.710 --> 00:08:48.870 and that it's being linked to the content we're 00:08:48.870 --> 00:08:50.340 teaching here. 00:08:50.340 --> 00:08:55.370 So a passion project by itself may or may not be academic. 00:08:55.370 --> 00:08:58.380 So there's a bit of tension there 00:08:58.380 --> 00:09:04.920 of us having to remind students of the need to keep making 00:09:04.920 --> 00:09:06.820 all of these connections. 00:09:06.820 --> 00:09:09.090 So I would really view success as when 00:09:09.090 --> 00:09:15.210 we're able to get the students to not only pull out, develop, 00:09:15.210 --> 00:09:19.890 polish a great new idea, but also to link it to what they've 00:09:19.890 --> 00:09:25.350 been learning here and test their ideas with a level 00:09:25.350 --> 00:09:27.870 of attention to the data-- 00:09:27.870 --> 00:09:29.400 even if it's qualitative-- 00:09:29.400 --> 00:09:32.290 that really we can all stand behind. 00:09:32.290 --> 00:09:35.252 SARAH HANSEN: And how did you do that in these projects? 00:09:35.252 --> 00:09:36.960 ANJALI SASTRY: So part of the requirement 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:40.600 is to really make sure that if a student-- 00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:42.100 there's actually quite a lot of work 00:09:42.100 --> 00:09:47.250 in trying to unpack the logic, the thinking behind a new idea. 00:09:47.250 --> 00:09:50.520 And I would spend a lot of time trying to help figure out, 00:09:50.520 --> 00:09:54.150 where is it we need to drill down to backup this idea? 00:09:54.150 --> 00:09:57.510 Where is it that we use the literature and the research, 00:09:57.510 --> 00:10:01.200 where you're going to do desk research to shore up 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:02.675 one leg of what you're doing? 00:10:02.675 --> 00:10:04.050 And where is it that you're going 00:10:04.050 --> 00:10:06.150 to gather new information-- 00:10:06.150 --> 00:10:10.800 whether it's by observation, by interviews, by other methods-- 00:10:10.800 --> 00:10:12.160 that you can bring to bear? 00:10:12.160 --> 00:10:15.000 So I really was looking for both. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:18.120 Where's the link to other people's work to the research 00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:19.230 and the literature? 00:10:19.230 --> 00:10:21.210 Where's the link to something new that you've 00:10:21.210 --> 00:10:24.090 uncovered using methods that you were going 00:10:24.090 --> 00:10:27.410 to describe systematically? 00:10:27.410 --> 00:10:28.650 SARAH HANSEN: I see. 00:10:28.650 --> 00:10:30.570 ANJALI SASTRY: The great thing about this 00:10:30.570 --> 00:10:32.550 is that it helps me to learn. 00:10:32.550 --> 00:10:36.720 So part of what I think the huge value in teaching this way 00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:40.770 is that you, as the instructor, have 00:10:40.770 --> 00:10:47.490 this gift of hearing new ideas that aren't necessarily 00:10:47.490 --> 00:10:51.390 embedded into the academic structure yet. 00:10:51.390 --> 00:10:54.720 So I discovered there really is a need 00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:56.640 to build a better theory and framework 00:10:56.640 --> 00:10:59.240 around public entrepreneurship. 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:00.630 That's really interesting. 00:11:00.630 --> 00:11:04.500 That helps me think about my own research goals 00:11:04.500 --> 00:11:07.140 and where I might build new collaborations here 00:11:07.140 --> 00:11:11.415 on campus with other faculty and researchers. 00:11:11.415 --> 00:11:13.290 SARAH HANSEN: And speaking of collaborations, 00:11:13.290 --> 00:11:18.870 what was the role of networking in this experience for Fellows? 00:11:18.870 --> 00:11:21.570 ANJALI SASTRY: So students coming here 00:11:21.570 --> 00:11:25.740 have varying predilections for networking 00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:28.350 and connecting with others. 00:11:28.350 --> 00:11:34.750 And many of them really benefit from having a focus to that. 00:11:34.750 --> 00:11:36.990 So very often we tell students-- you 00:11:36.990 --> 00:11:39.240 have this gift of being here on campus for a while. 00:11:39.240 --> 00:11:40.385 Make the most of it. 00:11:40.385 --> 00:11:41.760 But if you're just trying to meet 00:11:41.760 --> 00:11:44.940 people to fill up your Rolodex, it's rather self-serving. 00:11:44.940 --> 00:11:45.840 And it's awkward. 00:11:45.840 --> 00:11:47.970 And there's no reason to meet. 00:11:47.970 --> 00:11:51.270 But if you can articulate a really interesting question, 00:11:51.270 --> 00:11:54.360 this gives students a reason to contact people. 00:11:54.360 --> 00:11:56.820 So I really view the two as linked. 00:11:56.820 --> 00:12:00.450 Develop a great problem statement or research question. 00:12:00.450 --> 00:12:04.800 Use that to look at what you have access to on campus. 00:12:04.800 --> 00:12:10.860 That might include faculty, postdocs, research teams. 00:12:10.860 --> 00:12:13.440 That might include alumni. 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:18.360 It includes folks within the MIT ecosystems. 00:12:18.360 --> 00:12:23.700 You might head over to an incubator or some other-- 00:12:23.700 --> 00:12:26.580 a venue, an event where people are. 00:12:26.580 --> 00:12:31.500 And then because we get a lot of people passing through-- 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:34.950 as well as invitations to meetings, conferences, 00:12:34.950 --> 00:12:36.780 and events, globally-- 00:12:36.780 --> 00:12:39.090 I would shoot those to my students. 00:12:39.090 --> 00:12:42.360 So say, so-and-so is coming to campus next week. 00:12:42.360 --> 00:12:44.910 See if you can get on their agenda. 00:12:44.910 --> 00:12:48.320 And that would often work. 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:49.850 SARAH HANSEN: How are you looking 00:12:49.850 --> 00:12:53.390 to tweak this experience the next time you teach it? 00:12:53.390 --> 00:12:55.400 ANJALI SASTRY: So I think having the steps 00:12:55.400 --> 00:12:58.370 in the process a little bit clearer 00:12:58.370 --> 00:13:04.370 and having the motivating question of each step 00:13:04.370 --> 00:13:05.810 in a project like this-- 00:13:05.810 --> 00:13:07.310 really central. 00:13:07.310 --> 00:13:10.220 So early stages, here's what you should be thinking about. 00:13:10.220 --> 00:13:12.260 Here's the questions you need to answer. 00:13:12.260 --> 00:13:15.680 Middle stages, late-- so if I have a better framework 00:13:15.680 --> 00:13:17.960 for the steps in the work, I think 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:21.020 that would be a big benefit. 00:13:21.020 --> 00:13:25.370 Another is to realize not every student who comes in 00:13:25.370 --> 00:13:30.140 with their passion project is necessarily going to want to-- 00:13:30.140 --> 00:13:33.680 or should-- turn it into an in-depth study. 00:13:33.680 --> 00:13:36.680 So I've learned that you can't convert everyone. 00:13:36.680 --> 00:13:37.355 And that's OK. 00:13:40.160 --> 00:13:44.090 Because this is an offering of a new learning experience. 00:13:44.090 --> 00:13:47.030 It's very much driven by the students' interest. 00:13:47.030 --> 00:13:50.030 You need to really be able to allow 00:13:50.030 --> 00:13:52.400 the students to self select in. 00:13:52.400 --> 00:13:56.010 It's hard to offer something like this as a requirement. 00:13:56.010 --> 00:13:59.720 So that's another piece is striking the right balance 00:13:59.720 --> 00:14:04.310 between opening the door and inviting people 00:14:04.310 --> 00:14:07.700 in versus cracking the whip and following up on them. 00:14:07.700 --> 00:14:09.000 Students get really busy. 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:12.410 So one downside of an unstructured course 00:14:12.410 --> 00:14:14.390 is that it can fall by the wayside 00:14:14.390 --> 00:14:16.670 because they have their structured requirements 00:14:16.670 --> 00:14:19.700 and course meetings for all their other classes and this 00:14:19.700 --> 00:14:23.430 begins to feel like something on the side. 00:14:23.430 --> 00:14:28.070 So how you maintain the momentum and make sure 00:14:28.070 --> 00:14:32.690 that enough investment is going in is really important. 00:14:32.690 --> 00:14:37.940 So better sourcing and screening. 00:14:37.940 --> 00:14:39.210 Better process. 00:14:39.210 --> 00:14:41.510 And having regular meetings are all really 00:14:41.510 --> 00:14:43.880 important ingredients. 00:14:43.880 --> 00:14:45.380 SARAH HANSEN: Is there anything else 00:14:45.380 --> 00:14:47.840 you'd like to share about facilitating 00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:50.690 an experience like this that we haven't touched on yet? 00:14:50.690 --> 00:14:53.120 ANJALI SASTRY: I think one of the challenges 00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:55.010 that an instructor has to balance 00:14:55.010 --> 00:14:57.890 is, how far am I willing to go outside 00:14:57.890 --> 00:15:00.530 of my domain of expertise? 00:15:00.530 --> 00:15:03.710 How much do I know about the block chain? 00:15:03.710 --> 00:15:06.420 That's not an area of my research. 00:15:06.420 --> 00:15:10.160 So how far do I want to go down a set of projects 00:15:10.160 --> 00:15:12.410 that take that on. 00:15:12.410 --> 00:15:15.530 I need to be able to figure it out for myself 00:15:15.530 --> 00:15:18.740 and then also be very clear with the students. 00:15:18.740 --> 00:15:20.260 I'm interested in this topic. 00:15:20.260 --> 00:15:21.530 I'll learn with you. 00:15:21.530 --> 00:15:24.620 But my domain of expertise relates to these areas. 00:15:24.620 --> 00:15:27.150 We can apply it to your questions. 00:15:27.150 --> 00:15:31.160 We can apply systems thinking, or organizational change, 00:15:31.160 --> 00:15:34.730 or business models to the questions you're articulating. 00:15:34.730 --> 00:15:37.760 But I am not the technical expert on this domain. 00:15:37.760 --> 00:15:41.450 So you'll need to work with someone else on that. 00:15:41.450 --> 00:15:43.850 And different instructors have different interests 00:15:43.850 --> 00:15:46.650 in stepping out of their comfort zone. 00:15:46.650 --> 00:15:49.920 So I think that's really important. 00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:54.050 Another big question is, how willing are you 00:15:54.050 --> 00:15:59.300 as an instructor to have a mishmash of projects that 00:15:59.300 --> 00:16:01.790 take on very different domains? 00:16:01.790 --> 00:16:04.850 Or would you like them to be geographically or thematically 00:16:04.850 --> 00:16:06.170 linked? 00:16:06.170 --> 00:16:08.510 I suspect that I'm going to evolve a little more 00:16:08.510 --> 00:16:11.630 towards clustered projects. 00:16:11.630 --> 00:16:13.610 And I've seen some of my colleagues 00:16:13.610 --> 00:16:16.940 use such clusters of projects over time 00:16:16.940 --> 00:16:19.620 to build their own research insights. 00:16:19.620 --> 00:16:21.920 So I think that's really exciting. 00:16:21.920 --> 00:16:26.420 The idea of encouraging students to take 00:16:26.420 --> 00:16:29.750 on projects that motivate them but that also speak 00:16:29.750 --> 00:16:33.650 to an ongoing research program and on which you 00:16:33.650 --> 00:16:37.562 can start to build more knowledge and evidence. 00:16:37.562 --> 00:16:39.020 SARAH HANSEN: Do you have any words 00:16:39.020 --> 00:16:41.660 of advice to your colleagues out in the world who might 00:16:41.660 --> 00:16:44.300 want to try something similar? 00:16:44.300 --> 00:16:47.180 ANJALI SASTRY: Teaching this way is incredibly rewarding 00:16:47.180 --> 00:16:49.220 and also really scary. 00:16:49.220 --> 00:16:52.685 You'll often be invited into domains where 00:16:52.685 --> 00:16:55.700 you don't have the expertise. 00:16:55.700 --> 00:16:57.500 And it's quite hard to predict how 00:16:57.500 --> 00:17:01.130 a given session or a conversation will go. 00:17:01.130 --> 00:17:04.010 It's not like running a case where you know the story 00:17:04.010 --> 00:17:07.910 and you know what you're going to say at each moment in class, 00:17:07.910 --> 00:17:09.560 or you at least got a sense of what 00:17:09.560 --> 00:17:13.099 that might look like because very often students will 00:17:13.099 --> 00:17:16.938 come in and say, I've totally changed my mind. 00:17:16.938 --> 00:17:18.230 And you have to deal with that. 00:17:18.230 --> 00:17:21.290 So there's both the personal journey 00:17:21.290 --> 00:17:23.660 of learning that's less predictable 00:17:23.660 --> 00:17:26.480 and the domain part that's less predictable. 00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:29.060 But you, as the instructor, get to set 00:17:29.060 --> 00:17:30.320 some of those parameters. 00:17:30.320 --> 00:17:32.990 By, for instance, requiring a written update 00:17:32.990 --> 00:17:36.650 before a meeting, you can manage the conversation better. 00:17:36.650 --> 00:17:40.580 And by specifying the types of projects 00:17:40.580 --> 00:17:42.690 that you would really want to take on, 00:17:42.690 --> 00:17:45.230 you can also ensure that they're clustered 00:17:45.230 --> 00:17:48.970 in areas that are relevant to your own expertise. 00:17:48.970 --> 00:17:50.950 For me, one of the challenges-- 00:17:50.950 --> 00:17:52.750 I have to tell you-- is branding. 00:17:52.750 --> 00:17:55.060 What do I call this? 00:17:55.060 --> 00:17:57.700 Is it something different than just doing 00:17:57.700 --> 00:18:00.520 a bunch of independent studies? 00:18:00.520 --> 00:18:02.020 I think it's a work in progress. 00:18:02.020 --> 00:18:03.910 So I think the first few times you 00:18:03.910 --> 00:18:06.070 try out something like this, it doesn't yet 00:18:06.070 --> 00:18:08.950 have a fully distinct identity. 00:18:08.950 --> 00:18:11.020 And then, as I hone it, I'm going 00:18:11.020 --> 00:18:13.120 to give it a clearer name. 00:18:13.120 --> 00:18:17.230 But I've been using terms that link to social impact, 00:18:17.230 --> 00:18:21.760 that link to technology, and that also frame-- 00:18:21.760 --> 00:18:23.950 perhaps because it's focusing on the students 00:18:23.950 --> 00:18:26.800 I'm teaching-- but the idea of thinking strategically, 00:18:26.800 --> 00:18:30.920 thinking as a leader, and really putting 00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:35.620 yourselves in the shoes of an entrepreneur or an executive. 00:18:35.620 --> 00:18:39.880 So I want them to not simply make general arguments 00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:42.130 about what should happen, but to think 00:18:42.130 --> 00:18:45.760 about what they could do as a leader, an entrepreneur, 00:18:45.760 --> 00:18:48.130 an executive. 00:18:48.130 --> 00:18:49.930 So, yeah, come up with a great name. 00:18:49.930 --> 00:18:51.280 I'm still working on mine. 00:18:51.280 --> 00:18:53.880 All suggestions are welcome. 00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:56.560 I put in there terms like new executive 00:18:56.560 --> 00:19:02.210 thinking for social impact or technology for social impact. 00:19:02.210 --> 00:19:04.330 So we'll see how that plays out. 00:19:04.330 --> 00:19:06.137 Check back later. 00:19:06.137 --> 00:19:07.470 SARAH HANSEN: Thank you so much. 00:19:07.470 --> 00:19:08.303 ANJALI SASTRY: Sure. 00:19:08.303 --> 00:19:09.750 You're welcome.