WIP: da Vinci's Cube: Reframing Innovation in ECE Curricula

This work-in-progress paper reports on a new innovation model that extends Pasteur's Quadrant by adding an axis called Contemplation of Sentiment, which reflects the human-centered aspects of innovation. Human-centered designers and artists have played an integral role in innovation throughout history up to the present day. However, engineering education programs have not often included this integration - relying on a focus on “STEM” even though leaders in industry from Amazon and Apple to Qualcomm and SpaceX have left this exclusionary approach behind. Pasteur's Quadrant is a model adopted by industry and US government agencies to point to the relationship between basic and applied scientific research. To describe the implications of this model, we share the qualitative methodology and early results collected in over 30 individual interviews with thought leaders in industry reacting to da Vinci's Cube. We are exploring the question, “What is the connection between artists, designers, and broad societal innovation in relation to economic and job growth?” Early findings show that managers place themselves, their company, and their hires on relational intersections that include our added axis of “contemplation of sentiment”. We discuss these findings in the context of an NSF-RED team that developed a notable exception to the narrow curricula typical of electrical and computer engineering undergraduate programs.