Solving Global Challenges (SGC)

Snapshot:

Solving Global Challenges (SGC) is designed to equip students with innovative and cross-disciplinary strategies to address the most pressing global issues of the 21st century. Guided by the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the program covers a broad range of critical topics, including global health, gender equality, poverty alleviation, to environmental sustainability. SGC provides students with the tools to translate technical knowledge into effective solutions. By integrating diverse academic disciplines—from STEM and social sciences to the humanities and arts—students develop and refine their skills in critical analysis, problem-solving, and creativity as they work towards sustainable solutions to the complex issues that will shape our future.

Sample Lecture Offerings:

  • Climate Change in Perspective: Douglas Kysar
  • Healthy Lives at All Ages: Global Health Challenges, Responses, and Aims: Cara Fallon
  • Who We Are to Each Other: Human Rights in a Changing World: Claudia Flores

Sample Seminar Offerings:

  • Money, Power, and Nations: Understanding Global Financial Inequalities
  • Healing or Harming?: When Foreign Aid Becomes a Double-Edged Sword
  • Will AI Take Over The World? Power, Ethics, and the Path Forward
  • Engineering the Everyday: Innovations in Design and Problem-Solving
  • Rooted Resilience: Nature-Based Solutions to Urban Sustainability Challenges
  • The Algorithm Trap: Doomscrolling, Media, Manipulation, and Digital Well-Being
  • Good by Nature? Understanding Morality and the Human Mind

    Is SGC a Good Fit for Me?

    If you are intrigued by any of the following questions, then this session is a great choice:

    • How and why is systemic thinking important when creating solutions to the issues we face today? How can we use it to avoid the ‘good intention, terrible execution’ trap?
    • How can we design sustainable cities that’s equitable for everyone?
    • What are the most effective poverty alleviation strategies and how do we implement them?
    • Should artificial intelligence be used to solve human problems? What makes human intelligence different from artificial intelligence?
    • How do we balance environmental protections with economic development?