CDIO usage to design a Master in Development Practice

The Master in Development Practice (MDP) intends to be an interdisciplinary master degree program that prepares students to better identify and address the challenges of sustainable development. Integrating the core areas of... [ view full abstract ]

The Master in Development Practice (MDP) intends to be an interdisciplinary master degree program that prepares students to better identify and address the challenges of sustainable development. Integrating the core areas of the health, natural, social and management sciences, the MDP program provides students with the substantive knowledge and practical skills required to analyze and diagnose the multi-dimensional challenges of sustainable development such as extreme poverty, climate change and infectious diseases. By involving faculty members from 8 different schools, from Engineering to Performing Arts, it was a challenge to design a program with so many different people involved, so we resorted to CDIO (Conceive Design Implement Operate) to provide the framework for program design and operation. Though it is not an engineering program, the core of MDP is a problem solving and project development process, i.e CDIO. Therefor the full stack of CDIO standards was applied in the MDP design. Even the CDIO syllabus v2.0 was used. In this paper, it will be provided a short description of the program and its objectives and it will be explained how CDIO was used in the program’s design process. The CDIO Initiative is an educational framework stressing engineering fundamentals set in the context of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating real-world systems and products.