Undergraduate Courses

Doug Kaufman

This course is a deep dive into the essential skills and perspectives need to bring a new idea to life. The course explores the link between sociology, psychology, anthropology, and economics and the individual (and team) capacity to generate new ideas for a creative problem-solving. The course cultivates crucial competencies like curiosity, questioning, and creativity, aimed at empowering students to tackle problems with renewed, inquisitive approach.

Greg Victory 110.01
Mathavi Strasburger 110.02

Design Your Duke Journey (+Career!) is an interactive course that applies a design-thinking framework and mindset to career exploration and development. Students will learn to get curious, try stuff out and talk to people through experiential activities in and out of the classroom, self-reflection, readings and discussion. The intended goal is that students will learn how design thinking can help them explore options and opportunities, and at the same time, wrestle with the “wicked” problem of: How do I know if I’m on the right track, if I don’t know exactly what the destination is? This class is best suited for first-year or sophomore undergraduate students.

Shep Moyle

Do you have an idea and want to know what to do next? This class teaches you how to determine if your idea is good by testing it with actual people. Through an entrepreneurial framework of discovery, students will validate their ideas through hypothesis testing and iteration. By the end of the course, students will be able to identify problems, test potential solutions, and determine if their idea provides a meaningful solution.

Anne-Maria Makhulu

This course sets out to introduce students to some of the applications of anthropological theory and ethnographic method in contemporary institutional settings with the aim of familiarizing students with how anthropologists go about their work in complex organizational settings. Focusing on ethnographic method, as a powerful research tool, the course looks to both a series of use cases and an extensive literature of organizational management, user, and consumer experience. Students will have the opportunity to engage with anthropologists working in complex organizational contexts as well as business. Prior courses in Cultural Anthropology recommended but not required.

Aaron Dinin

Most people spend their lives afraid of failing. Yet, many of the world’s most successful people failed numerous times on their paths toward success. The underlying question of this class is if failing is as antithetical to learning as we’re taught to believe. To explore this question, we will test ways of using failure as a strategy for learning. We will experiment with failure to learn how it can make us better as we develop our skills as innovators, specifically focusing on the earliest stage of creativity: ideation. We will use failure through experimentation as a technique for problem definition and needs discovery which, in turn, will help us validate the quality of our ideas.

Aaron Dinin

Typical Duke students spend hours each day using social media. You’ve surely heard the platforms described as “revolutionary,” and you’ve also heard them described as “time wasters.” What you probably haven’t thought about is how similar they are to previous “revolutionary” communications technologies like novels, newspapers, and even language itself. This course explores ways in which studying the masters of previous “social” media technologies—the Shakespeares, Whitmans, and Eliots of the world—can help us understand how influencers on digital social media leverage the same platforms you use every day to market themselves, build their brands, and grow their audiences.

Jed Simmons

The class will jump into the middle of the change and innovation happening at the intersection of Media, Entertainment and Technology. We will look at how we make, distribute and consume Media and Entertainment. We will focus on entrepreneurs and innovative companies and creators revolutionizing Media and Entertainment, as well as thought leaders and leading companies in the space. The class will feature Cases, articles, speakers, in class discussion along with a term long project.

Amy S Peters,
Anna Wilson
Rachel Settle

When creating transformative technology based products and services the essential component to its success and positive impact on society is the central role of humans. This course explores this intersection of the humanities and technology. On the development side products are created in interdisciplinary teams through leadership, communication, process building, trust, experimentation, critical thinking, and problem solving. On the user experience side new innovations are successful when they are designed for and with humans in mind. Product managers must understand diverse cultures and customers. Concepts covered include needs finding, ethical product development, problem identification, market opportunity analysis, strategy, road mapping, product development, competitive analysis, branding, and life cycle management. Learning takes place using a mix of individual and team-based assignments, presentations, simulations and projects.

Sima Sistani

A transformative class designed to empower women to drive meaningful change through taking entrepreneurial action in their personal and professional lives. The program integrates self-reflection, skill-building, and leadership training to help students unlock their potential and thrive while creating a positive impact in their communities and organizations. Through interactive workshops and guided discussions, students will cultivate confidence, develop strategic decision-making skills, and learn how to identify opportunities for innovation and action.

Students will also explore how to navigate challenges and influence change. By the end of the course, students will leave not only with the tools and mindset needed to lead authentically and effectively but also with actionable strategies to take initiative, communicate effectively, and champion solutions that matter.

Aaron Dinin

Student teams work on specific arts-based entrepreneurial projects. Teams comprised of students from different backgrounds (arts, engineering, economics, computer science). Goals include creating business plan and launching ventures in areas of the arts. Structure an adaptation of Fuqua Program for Entrepreneurs. Ideal projects have real/positive impact on society. Students learn to situate artistic creativity within projects that meet societal need. Students from any background welcome to apply for enrollment. Must have interest in arts or working with artists in entrepreneurial context. Admission by permission of instructors.

Danielle Zapotoczny

Innovating for Social Impact will explore the ever-evolving intersection between the public sector, private sector, and non-profit organizations in delivering needed services around the world. With a global “to do list” in place via the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), world leaders are calling upon the private sector, NGOs and individuals to play an active role alongside governments in finding and implementing solutions. These partnerships are such a priority that “Partnership for the Goals” is specifically called out as one of the SDGs.

Focusing on “social impact” partnerships, this course will look at innovative ways that the individuals, influencers and the private sector are creating change along with the reasons driving their desire to do so. From a soda company delivering vaccines through their distribution channels and local restaurants being tapped to serve as the hot lunchroom for public schools to product lines like RED being created with the sole purpose of funding AIDS interventions and businesses like TOMS and Warby Parker embedding purpose as part of their company DNA, social problems and public needs are being tackled in innovative ways with collaboration across the public, private and non-profit sectors.

Brands and influencers are also leveraging their platforms with the specific intent of raising public engagement in important issues. These innovative marketing and communications strategies play an interesting and evolving role in shaping social action, and sometimes policy, as they drive mass audiences to take action via advocacy or with companies either via dollars they spend or by shaping the workplace from the inside out.

As the lines continue to blur on who does what and how, it is an important time to look at how collaboration across sectors can lead to real progress. By studying the various ways that these sectors are leveraging their talents, time and treasure to have an impact on social good, students will see there is no one way to be a change-maker. As many students will exercise professional and/or volunteer leadership in public-private sector issues during their careers, the enhanced knowledge, personal insight, and evaluation skills learned in this course should support them as they leave Duke and look to help solve the world’s most pressing problems, no matter what career path they choose.

Katya Wesolowski

Anthropology as a discipline (a field of study) and the site where anthropologists work: the field. Combines theories of anthropological fieldwork methods with practice, including participation, observation, and interviews. Students undertake original research in a local field site of their choice and produce their own mini-ethnography. This requirement may also be satisfied by taking Cultural Anthropology 290A Duke in Ghana Anthropological Field Research.

Brad Brinegar

Before Dollar Shave Club, we went to Target to save on Gillette. We still buy traditional brands at traditional stores. But a host of these disruptors are cutting out the middleman while redefining brick-and-mortar retail. Amazon now gets us whatever we want, whenever and wherever we want it. Dollar Shave Club quickly amassed 3 million subscribers. These “direct-to-consumer” brands control every customer interaction. These brands become as much about that experience as about the product itself. This requires customer empathy. Armed with these insights, we can create brands that reframe peoples’ category expectations and, in best cases, enhance their lives.

Shep Moyle

Course covers component elements of developing skills needed to launch a venture. Starting at the point of need identification, course covers lean methodology; innovation and entrepreneurship strategy; creating needed financing and resource structures; effectively marketing/communicating innovation and its associated benefits; leading, managing, and working effectively within teams; creating a positive and ethical work culture; and evaluating success. Materials for class discussion are case studies and readings. Course is only open to Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate students.

Grace Kim

Application of microeconomic theory, such as game theory and industrial organization, to analyze business start-ups and their development. Focus on evaluation of the role of entrepreneurs in the macroeconomy, and the microeconomic performance of young businesses. The effects of government policies and economic fluctuations on entrepreneurs will be addressed, as well as an understanding of the organization and financial structure, development, and allocational decisions of growing entrepreneurial ventures. Prerequisite: Economics 201D.

Shep Moyle

Did your idea pass muster in New Ventures Develop? Do you have early revenue or evidence of product market fit and want to continue to refine your go to market strategy? New Ventures Deliver is the ideal course for serious entrepreneurs ready to push themselves to take the leap. In this course you will continue to test core hypothesis while you develop a milestone driven plan for go-to-market, sales, staffing, and fundraising.

Ashish Arora

In this course, students bring together interdisciplinary insights from their work throughout the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate program to shed light on innovation and entrepreneurship and the roles they play in addressing the world's most pressing problems. The class will incorporate rich discussion, selected readings, and guest speakers addressing topics in innovation and entrepreneurship. Students will focus on applying what they have learned through the certificate curriculum to develop an innovation and entrepreneurship capstone project. Director of undergraduate studies consent required.

Anna Wilson

The students who are enrolled in the course only receive course credit for completion, they do not receive any compensation. There is a co-curricular component to the course where we engage students who are NOT enrolled the course and have specific technical skills to work with the enrolled students to complete technical projects. They are the ones who are paid the stipend. The two groups of students - course enrolled & co-curricular - work together but are separate groups with separate incentive/reward structures (course credit for the former, cash stipend for the latter). Prerequisite: I&E 283 Product Management

Kathleen Horvath
Judith Ledlee

Over the two-semester Design Climate course sequence, student teams use Design Thinking to create triple bottom line startups to address climate challenges posed by industry professionals or faculty. In Design Climate I (fall), student teams develop business ideas by working through the first three phases of Design Thinking: stakeholder empathizing, opportunity definition, and solution ideation. The semester culminates with a pitch on the startup idea that will be further vetted in Design Climate II (spring). Through this process, students learn directly from industry professionals and cultivate capabilities in Design Thinking, entrepreneurship, project management, sustainable product development, climate fundamentals, and business competencies. For more information, visit our website at designclimate.duke.edu. We highly encourage students to only register if you plan on taking both Design Climate I and II.

Eric Mlyn 

“We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.” Jerry Garcia 

Few musical acts have ever reached the level of cultural awareness and impact as the Grateful Dead, and perhaps none has enjoyed such ardent devotion for so long. The story of the Grateful Dead offers a lens through which to view not only the tumult of the 1960s counterculture movement but also to understand broader political and historical forces in the United States.  In other words, the Grateful Dead and their history and music will form the backbone for the class, but this will be used to shed light on social upheaval, identity and shared experience, how ideas endure, and the sometimes-murky search for collective meaning. Using a mix of scholarly and biographical accounts, this course will offer students a multidimensional and interdisciplinary examination of how ideas form, inspire, intimidate, and ultimately stand the test of time. We will also explore the significance of how ideas can go from the margins to the mainstream through notions of authenticity and cooptation. Part of the What Now? network of first-year seminars. 

Greg Victory 110.01 
Mathavi Strasburger 110.02 
 
Design Your Duke Journey (+Career!) is an interactive course that applies a design-thinking framework and mindset to career exploration and development. Students will learn to get curious, try stuff out and talk to people through experiential activities in and out of the classroom, self-reflection, readings and discussion. The intended goal is that students will learn how design thinking can help them explore options and opportunities, and at the same time, wrestle with the “wicked” problem of: How do I know if I’m on the right track, if I don’t know exactly what the destination is? This class is best suited for first-year or sophomore undergraduate students. 

Shep Moyle 

Do you have an idea and want to know what to do next? This class teaches you how to determine if your idea is good by testing it with actual people. Through an entrepreneurial framework of discovery, students will validate their ideas through hypothesis testing and iteration. By the end of the course, students will be able to identify problems, test potential solutions, and determine if their idea provides a meaningful solution. 

Lee Baker 

The field of design and the burgeoning field of User Experience (UX) research has recently applied the methods anthropologists have used for over a century. The methods of cultural anthropology are distinctly aligned to ask questions about motivations, beliefs, values, and relationships within cultural systems through direct participant observation, surveys, focus groups, and archival research. Privileging critical listening, empathy, and perspective-taking, we try to discern why people do what they do, and apply these questions to human-centered design. 

Thomas Brothers 

How is it possible to create great art with someone else? This course answers that question by examining music, visual arts, and literature. Our main references are the Beatles and Duke Ellington, who reached extraordinary levels of accomplishment thanks to vigorous, unmatched levels of collaborative interaction. We also look at Picasso and Braque, Kehinde Wiley, Warhol, Dutch workshops in the seventeenth century, architectural studios, Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, and movies. What we might call the ethics of collaboration plays out differently in these two ensembles. Musicians who helped Ellington were largely hidden due to the goal of establishing him as a genius composer who did it all by himself. The Beatles, in contrast, carefully cultivated the image of an egalitarian musical collective, and this image came to dominate rock during the 1960s. By examining creative collaboration across varied fields, students will explore how great innovations come about, what we ow those with whom we collaborate, and how successful models for creation reverberate across time. 

Douglas Kaufman 

This course is a deep dive into the essential skills and perspectives need to bring a new idea to life. The course explores the link between sociology, psychology, anthropology, and economics and the individual (and team) capacity to generate new ideas for a creative problem-solving. The course cultivates crucial competencies like curiosity, questioning, and creativity, aimed at empowering students to tackle problems with renewed, inquisitive approach. 

Andrew Nurkin 

This community-engaged course provides an introduction to contemporary issues in US arts policy and cultural sector leadership across four broad themes: creative institutions; cultural equity and accessibility; creative placemaking/community development; and the creative economy. In addition to policy questions in these areas, we examine leadership practices in arts organizations and cultural institutions, with particular attention to the kinds of leadership the arts require in a post-2020 world. Students will work in teams on a semester-long collaborative project with an arts policy organization and experience the arts in practice through attendance at performances and exhibitions. 

Johanna (Jody) McAuliffe 

We will explore techniques for spontaneous behavior, immediate creation, and developing your creativity and truth on stage. The goal of the class exercises will be to build community and collaboration, to deepen your communication skills, and to strengthen your natural sense of humor. We will study the works of Viola Spolin, Keith Johnstone, and iO. 

Aaron Dinin

Marketing and publicity are so important to audience building that, 20 years ago, expanding beyond local audiences usually couldn't be accomplished without huge advertising budgets. However, thanks to the Internet, you can build a global audience from your dorm room. This class explores how. Learn about social media, search engine optimization, virality, content marketing, growth hacking, and other digital audience building strategies. They're difficult to learn and time consuming to execute, so expect to struggle. We'll learn as much from our failures as we will from our successes as we discover what it takes to cultivate global awareness for an idea without ever leaving Durham. 

Aaron Dinin 
 
Most people spend their lives afraid of failing. Yet, many of the world’s most successful people failed numerous times on their paths toward success. The underlying question of this class is if failing is as antithetical to learning as we’re taught to believe. To explore this question, we will test ways of using failure as a strategy for learning. We will experiment with failure to learn how it can make us better as we develop our skills as innovators, specifically focusing on the earliest stage of creativity: ideation. We will use failure through experimentation as a technique for problem definition and needs discovery which, in turn, will help us validate the quality of our ideas. 

Aaron Dinin 
 
Typical Duke students spend hours each day using social media. You’ve surely heard the platforms described as “revolutionary,” and you’ve also heard them described as “time wasters.” What you probably haven’t thought about is how similar they are to previous “revolutionary” communications technologies like novels, newspapers, and even language itself. This course explores ways in which studying the masters of previous “social” media technologies—the Shakespeares, Whitmans, and Eliots of the world—can help us understand how influencers on digital social media leverage the same platforms you use every day to market themselves, build their brands, and grow their audiences. 

Rachel S Gelfand, 
Lauren Rose Henschel 

The aim of this course is to critically analyze digital culture from a feminist and gender studies perspective. We will address topics related to digital innovation and its history, unpacking and questioning them through the insights offered by genders studies analytical tools. Subjects such as the rise of the Silicon Valley, gaming culture, social media, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, extraction of data applied to biotechnology, macroeconomic development of IT platforms and the impact of technology on ecology will be discussed starting from a current event or debate, to which we will give a historical, ethical, sociological, theoretical, literary or cinematographic perspective. 

Amy S Peters 
Isaac Isuk Park 
Rachel Settle 
 
When creating transformative technology based products and services the essential component to its success and positive impact on society is the central role of humans. This course explores this intersection of the humanities and technology. On the development side products are created in interdisciplinary teams through leadership, communication, process building, trust, experimentation, critical thinking, and problem solving. On the user experience side new innovations are successful when they are designed for and with humans in mind. Product managers must understand diverse cultures and customers. Concepts covered include needs finding, ethical product development, problem identification, market opportunity analysis, strategy, road mapping, product development, competitive analysis, branding, and life cycle management. Learning takes place using a mix of individual and team-based assignments, presentations, simulations and projects.  

Anna Wilson

Selected topics in innovation and entrepreneurship. Prerequisite: I&E 283 Product Management

Ezra Kucharz 

This course offers an in-depth exploration of the fast-evolving landscape of the sports business, with a special emphasis on Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rights in college sports. Students will examine how NIL is reshaping the collegiate athletics ecosystem, creating new opportunities for athlete influencers and entrepreneurs. The course will delve into the broader sports industry, covering key topics such as the role of media in sports, sports betting, fantasy sports, AI, sports finance and investments, team and league management, athlete representation, and the intersection of technology and sports. 

Students dissect the legal, ethical, and economic dimensions of the sports industry, gaining an understanding of the rights and opportunities now available to athletes and businesses. They explore case studies of athletes who have successfully leveraged their personal brand to become creator entrepreneurs and analyze the technology-driven strategies that underpin their success. The course covers the symbiotic relationship between sports, media, and branding in the digital age, equipping students with insights into the dynamics of modern sports marketing and endorsement deals. By the end of the course, students will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to navigate and succeed in the modern sports business landscape. 

Cara Tsitouris 

In this project-based course, students learn to craft compelling brand stories and strategic messages that resonate with diverse audiences. Working in teams, students will design fictional companies, analyze industry trends, and create content like websites, product marketing, fact sheets, and internal communications that build brand identity across multiple platforms. Students also practice tackling real-world challenges by responding to crisis scenarios and developing skills in managing brand reputation. The course culminates in creating digital press kits, showcasing students' ability to craft impactful messages for various business contexts. 

Brad Brinegar 
 
Before Dollar Shave Club, we went to Target to save on Gillette. We still buy traditional brands at traditional stores. But a host of these disruptors are cutting out the middleman while redefining brick-and-mortar retail. Amazon now gets us whatever we want, whenever and wherever we want it. Dollar Shave Club quickly amassed 3 million subscribers. These “direct-to-consumer” brands control every customer interaction. These brands become as much about that experience as about the product itself. This requires customer empathy. Armed with these insights, we can create brands that reframe peoples’ category expectations and, in best cases, enhance their lives. 

Chris Eaglin 
 
Course covers component elements of developing skills needed to launch a venture. Starting at the point of need identification, course covers lean methodology; innovation and entrepreneurship strategy; creating needed financing and resource structures; effectively marketing/communicating innovation and its associated benefits; leading, managing, and working effectively within teams; creating a positive and ethical work culture; and evaluating success. Materials for class discussion are case studies and readings. Course is only open to Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate students. 

Departmental Staff 

This course covers key topics for venture investors and startup founders working with venture capital. Students will gain a solid understanding of the structure of venture capital funds, the role of risk versus return, and capital staging. The course also addresses the impact of dilution, expected returns, and important considerations around control and ownership. Additionally, students will explore essential terms that influence control, while developing a clear understanding of how business strategy aligns with financing decisions. This prepares students to navigate venture capital from both investor and founder perspectives. 

Jamie Jones
Max Stern 

Do you want to design a business model around either your own idea or someone else's problem? In New Ventures Develop you'll learn to assess opportunities, develop and test business models, understand your financials, and build successful teams. If you've validated an idea through New Ventures Discover or through your independent customer discovery process, New Ventures Develop can facilitate idea to action. In this course, student teams will develop core elements of a strategy for a technology or business idea; detail will be suitable for a business plan document for a company seeking initial investment; strategy will serve as a foundation for a first operating plan for company. 

Jonathon Cummings 
 
In this course, students bring together interdisciplinary insights from their work throughout the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate program to shed light on innovation and entrepreneurship and the roles they play in addressing the world's most pressing problems. The class will incorporate rich discussion, selected readings, and guest speakers addressing topics in innovation and entrepreneurship. Students will focus on applying what they have learned through the certificate curriculum to develop an innovation and entrepreneurship capstone project. Director of undergraduate studies consent required. 

Judith Ledlee 

Over the two-semester Design Climate sequence, student teams use design thinking to develop triple bottom line startups that address climate challenges posed by industry professionals or faculty. In Design Climate II, student teams develop their business ideas by prototyping, gathering market validation data, and developing their business model. The semester culminates in a pitch of the startup ideas to members of the entrepreneurship community. Students cultivate capabilities in design thinking, entrepreneurship, project management, sustainable product development, climate fundamentals & business competencies. Includes local field trips. 

Gary Wedding 

This course provides an overview of business development in the rapidly growing climate tech sector. Through 'in the trenches' input from guest speakers (founders and investors across the U.S.) and assignments, students will learn about the climate tech landscape and become more fluent with certain business skills and tools, such as (1) market sizing, (2) investor databases, (3) competitor analysis, (4) productivity techniques, and (5) term sheets. 

Jon Reifschneider 

This course is designed to equip aspiring entrepreneurs with the knowledge and skills needed to create, launch, and scale AI-driven startups. The curriculum provides a comprehensive understanding of the AI value chain, explores successful business models, and dives into the logistics of building a team and product in the AI space. Students will gain insights into differentiating their startups for sustainable competitive advantage and navigating the complex ethical, regulatory, and legal landscape of working with AI models. The class will include significant hand-on team project work where students will develop and refine AI startup ideas, applying the concepts learned throughout the course. Through practical case studies and interactive discussions, students will learn to identify market opportunities for the application of AI, develop differentiated AI-based products that address fairness, legal and ethical concerns, and build new ventures around bringing AI products to market. 

Anna Wilson

Selected topics in innovation and entrepreneurship. Prerequisite: I&E 283 Product Management