On Monday, December 10th, Ralph King’s film, Extreme by Design, will be screening at Menlo. This film documents a six month Stanford course, called ‘Entrepreneurial design for extreme affordability’ in which students design products that help solve real world problems and then spend two weeks abroad implementing their products. This film has been so successful that it will air on PBS in prime time nationally in 2013.  Extreme by Design will be shown by Global Issues teacher, Stephanie Portman with the Coat of Arms. Portman hopes that the film will help inspire her class who islearning about similar ideas. “[The Global Issues Class] looks at a lot of challenges in the world today; poverty, lack of education, gender inequality, health issues and a lot of our emphasis has been on organizations that are trying to help. We end the semester looking at innovations as a way to help, which fits in very well with the film,” said Portman. Her hope is that these innovations will be a way for critics to see that small-scale things have an impact. “New simple ideas, some that involve a lot of technology, some that don’t [will hopefully] provide new opportunities [for third world countries],” said Portman. She

compared the course with Menlo’s ASR class, the main difference being that Stanford’s class deals with real world problems using innovations. The goal of this film is to introduce students to the idea of innovative thinking, and problem solving.

“It’s a great opportunity for kids at Menlo because it’s a way to become aware as many universities are beginning new programs similar to this one,” said Portman.

Director Ralph King has similar goals for the movie showcase at Menlo. “The goal of showing the movie is to help spawn a new generation of problem solvers. The time is very right, because there is a strong interest by young people these days as they have realized there is a strong reward in helping others. As a result, there are many ways to have a career in service to others, and so by introducing students to this design thinking technique, […] students to think about this as career education,” said King.

The Stanford program is a rigorous, exclusive program that runs for five months, two weeks of which are actually spent abroad in countries where solutions might be implemented. “It’s twoquarters. The first quarter they learn the process and the techniques of design thinking, and then at spring break they go to the countries where their projects are implemented for about two weeks. When they come back, in the second quarter, they make the products they have decided to make. It’s a race to build these things and get them done in time for the final presentation. Many of them take their projects into summer and sometimes well beyond,” said King. Although the innovations that are created will take a few years before they enter the market, eventually they change many lives.

King first got involved with documenting the ‘Entrepreneurial design for extreme affordability’ course when he initially heard about it. “I went to the professor and asked if I could audit it for a year, which he said I could, so I went to Burma with the student groups, observing the process so I could really understand the process from the inside out. The students were fearless, incredibly creative and just like Menlo students, full of life. I thought I had to do a film on this,” said King.

With his team, King shot over 150 hours of video, and then spend an entire year cutting it down to just an hour for a movie. In the end, they received the huge reward of PBS broadcasting it live on primetime television.

After the presentation at Menlo, one of the  Stanford engineers featured in the film, Durell Coleman will be interviewed by Coat of Arms Community Outreach Director Kelsey Flower. “[Durell’s] a really cool guy, who now has a startup and was involved in the program,” said King. It’s an opportunity that no Menlo students should miss.