RISE-UP Rhode Island

Pathways to Innovation & Entrepreneurship

What is PIE-D?

PIE-D is a semester-long, credit bearing, real-life problem solving, hands on training studio designed for undergraduate and graduate students. Participants progress through a Lean Startup-inspired approach based on key entrepreneurial focus areas: translating needs to technical specifications, concept generation, down-selection, specification refinement, functional prototyping, testing, and redesign.

Faculty and mentors support and motivate students to explore the commercial landscape of their proof-of-concept, minimally viable prototypes (MVPs), and navigate them to secure additional funding for the next step in the innovation lifecycle.

How PIE-D Works

Sponsors submit a problem their organization is facing and the RISEUP instruction team collaborates to create a one-page summary which accurately captures the problem in terms that are understandable to civilian student teams.

In the next step, students form teams and self-select the problem they wish to work on.

Student teams then conduct approximately 80-100 interviews in a process called “beneficiary discovery.” This allows them to learn every aspect of the problem and find every possible solution pathway.

At the end of the semester, student teams present their fully explored solution pathway to the sponsor. Sponsors then determine if the solutions are applicable to the problem.

Who Should Enroll?

Undergraduate and Graduate students interested in solving real-world critical challenges ranging from national security, natural disasters, energy, or environmental issues.

If you would like to know more about PIE-D, contact RISE-UP at riseupri@urirf.org.