The Blum Center for Developing Economies

The Blum Center for Developing Economies is UC Berkeley’s interdisciplinary hub for students, researchers, and scholars focusing on global poverty and inequality. The Center enables world-class interdisciplinary problem-solving in key areas such as energy, health, financial services, food, water, and sanitation. Since its founding in 2006, the Blum Center’s mission has been to train people, source and support innovations, and develop scalable solutions. The Blum Center has six initiatives: • The Big Ideas Competition - An annual social innovation competition in which students submit proposals to address global issues in a variety of fields. Since 2005, Big Ideas has attracted over 8,000 participants from 12 universities, secured $650M+ in additional funding, and has launched dozens of social enterprises around the world. • The Global Poverty and Practice Minor - One of the most popular academic minors at UC Berkeley, GPP trains undergraduates to critically analyze the history and sources of poverty and inequality, and prepares them to engage with poverty alleviation all over the world. • The Designated Emphasis in Development Engineering - A first-of-its-kind academic specialization that prepares doctoral students in engineering, business, and social sciences to create and pilot technological interventions and solutions for low-resource settings. • Master of Development Engineering - A 15-month professional master's degree program merging technology and development for changemaker careers, launching Fall 2021. • IdeaLabs - Multidisciplinary collaborations between UC Berkeley students working on developing an application, product, or service for social impact. • The Development Impact Lab - Founded in partnership with USAID, DIL is a global consortium of researchers, NGOs, and industry partners committed to advancing international development through science and technology.