The Blum Center for Developing Economies

What The Blum Center for Developing Economies does

The Blum Center for Developing Economies is an academic center at the University of California, Berkeley, established in 2007 to address global poverty through interdisciplinary education, research, and student innovation. It operates as a university unit housed in Blum Hall on the Berkeley campus and serves primarily UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students, with an extension of activities to affiliated fellows, faculty, and partner organizations across more than 70 countries.

The Center's core offerings include the Global Poverty & Practice (GPP) undergraduate minor, the 15-month Master of Development Engineering (MDevEng) graduate program, the NSF-funded InFEWS fellowship at the food-energy-water nexus, and the Big Ideas Contest, which has received over 1,200 student proposals and catalyzed $100M+ in additional funding for student ventures. Research and product outputs include EpiNu (an offline AI nutrition assessment system), Climate Health Photovox (a digital storytelling curriculum for documenting climate-health impacts), STARR (a Din\u00e9 astronomy-based math learning tool), and the #GlobalPOV mixed-media curriculum paired with the UC Press book "Encountering Poverty." Senior Fellows such as Sonia Navani advance frameworks like Precision Community Health, which applies representational learning to community-scale disease risk in conflict and disaster settings.

The Center is funded through UC Berkeley institutional allocations, donor-designated fellowships (e.g., Bruce Pray Undergraduate Fellowship), and competitive grants led by the 2017 National Science Foundation InFEWS grant of $3 million. Programs are delivered at no incremental cost to students through the university's enrollment and fellowship systems. The Center extends its reach through partnerships with tribal colleges (Navajo Technical University, AIHEC's Native FEWS Alliance), international organizations (IRC, UNICEF, UNFPA), and research entities (Columbia School of Public Health, DHDI).

Name

The Blum Center for Developing Economies

Legal name

Blum Center for Developing Economies

Website

https://blumcenter.berkeley.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

2007

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The Blum Center for Developing Economies is a UC Berkeley academic center that operates interdisciplinary educational programs, including the GPP minor, MDevEng graduate degree, and Big Ideas Contest, serving undergraduate and graduate students focused on global poverty alleviation and development engineering.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Higher Education / Academic Research Center

NAICS

Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools (611310), Scientific Research and Development Services (5417), Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (54171), Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities (54172)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Public Research Universities with Major Extension & Outreach Missions (EDAHAAAG)

akta.pro secondary industries

Education Systems & Skills Technical Assistance (BPADAEAI), Education Access & Quality (International Development) (BPAGABAE), Disaster Risk Reduction & Climate Risk Management (BPADALAK)

Keywords

• Development engineering education
• Global poverty research
• Interdisciplinary academic programs
• Social innovation training
• Humanitarian design programs

Headquarters

HQ city

Berkeley

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Revenue model

1. University Core Funding: The Blum Center operates as a university research and education center at UC Berkeley, funded through institutional budgets, philanthropy, and grants from organizations such as the National Science Foundation (e.g., $3 million InFEWS grant).
2. Student Fellowships and Grants: The center distributes fellowships to students for practice experiences and summer programs, funded by donor-designated funds (e.g., Bruce Pray Undergraduate Fellowship for South Asia) and institutional funding.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

The Blum Center for Developing Economies is an academic research and education center at UC Berkeley that designs and delivers interdisciplinary programs, fellowships, and competitions aimed at alleviating global poverty through development engineering, policy, and practice. It offers a Minor in Global Poverty & Practice, a Master of Development Engineering degree, the Interdisciplinary Frontiers in Food, Energy, and Water Systems (InFEWS) program, fellowships, and the Big Ideas Contest for student-led innovation.

Product overview

The Blum Center for Developing Economies is an academic center at UC Berkeley focused on education and innovation for global poverty alleviation. It operates as a portfolio of interconnected academic programs and research initiatives rather than a unified commercial product. The core academic offerings include the Global Poverty & Practice (GPP) Minor for undergraduates and the Master of Development Engineering (MDevEng) for graduate students. Research initiatives include InFEWS (food-energy-water nexus training), the Big Ideas Contest for student innovators, and the DToD Fellowship. The Center also develops technology tools and frameworks including EpiNu (an offline AI nutrition system), Climate Health Photovox (a digital storytelling curriculum), and STARR (a Diné astronomy-based math learning tool). The #GlobalPOV Project provides multimedia educational content on poverty studies. These offerings work together as an ecosystem supporting students from theoretical coursework through practical field experience to social impact careers.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Global Poverty & Practice (GPP) Minor
• Master of Development Engineering (MDevEng)
• InFEWS Program
• Big Ideas Contest
• Development Through Dialogue (DToD) Fellowship

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 1,200 student proposals submitted to the Big Ideas Contest with $100M+ in additional funding awarded to student projects
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers13 records

Segments3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered major, core and minor.

• Native FEWS AlliancemajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025The Native FEWS Alliance is a cross-institutional initiative to expand participation in Food, Energy, and Water Systems (FEWS) education to all students, including Native Americans. DevEng Director Dr. Yael Perez serves as program coordinator for the Alliance, which includes tribal colleges and research universities.
• Navajo Technical University (NTU)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022UC Berkeley's Development Engineering programs partnered with NTU's Electrical Engineering program for a joint engineering curriculum targeting Native American students. Six Berkeley students interned at NTU's campus in Crownpoint, New Mexico, working on engineering projects including solar energy and air quality monitoring alongside NTU faculty and students.
• American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022AIHEC initiated the Native FEWS Alliance, of which the Blum Center's DevEng programs are a part. AIHEC serves as the 'backbone' of the Alliance, facilitating partnerships between tribal colleges and research universities to expand participation in Food, Energy, and Water Systems education.
• DHDI (Digital Health & Development Institute)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSonia Navani founded DHDI, a nonprofit research group that collaborates with local civil society partners in eastern DR Congo and beyond to implement the Climate Health Photovox curriculum and EpiNu AI system. DHDI serves as the implementation arm for Blum Center research on community health and climate adaptation.
• Big Ideas ContestcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerThe Big Ideas Contest (bigideascontest.org) is a signature Blum Center program that provides mentorship, funding, and a platform for student teams to develop and pitch social impact innovations. Over 1,200 student proposals have been submitted with $100M+ in additional funding awarded to student projects.
• Taktaka PlasticsminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPaige Balcom, a DevEng PhD emphasis graduate (2022), co-founded Taktaka Plastics — a social enterprise producing plastic products through local manufacturing in Africa. Taktaka Plastics emerged from DevEng research and represents the commercialization pathway for Blum Center-affiliated innovations.
• A Better Education (ABE) ClubminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerUC Berkeley DevEng students partnered with the ABE Club in Kasigau, Kenya as part of a DevEng internship pilot program. The organization supports youth education and women's empowerment in Kenya's southwestern region, focusing on health, food security, hygiene, and farming practices.
• American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)minorGTM or Marketing PartnerDevEng Director Dr. Yael Perez and NTU professor Peter Romine presented the idea of the joint DevEng-NTU engineering curriculum at the ASEE conference in Minneapolis in 2022, which initiated the NTU partnership.

Scale indicators12 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights Policy: Harvard's Carr Center researches and teaches at the intersection of human rights, poverty, and inequality. It overlaps with Blum Center's GPP mission but sits within a broader portfolio of human rights and global affairs programming at Harvard Kennedy School.

Direct peers

• Purdue EPICS: Purdue's EPICS program sends interdisciplinary engineering teams into community service projects over multi-year engagements, overlapping significantly with the Blum Center's Development Engineering pedagogy of pairing technical coursework with sustained, community-based practice.
• University of Oxford Department of International Development: Oxford's ODID is a leading interdisciplinary centre for research and graduate training on international development, providing a globally benchmarked comparison for the Blum Center's blend of applied poverty research, graduate degree programs, and policy engagement.
• MIT D-Lab: MIT's D-Lab is the closest peer to the Blum Center's Development Engineering mission, training students and practitioners to design and deploy technologies for poverty alleviation in low-resource communities. Both centers combine engineering rigor with fieldwork and operate as teaching-and-applied-research hubs within major US research universities.
• Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs: Northwestern's Buffett Institute convenes interdisciplinary faculty and graduate students on global challenges including poverty, governance, and sustainability, serving a similar cross-faculty convening and education role as the Blum Center on UC Berkeley's campus.
• Tufts Feinstein International Center: Tufts' Feinstein International Center conducts interdisciplinary research and education on humanitarian assistance and international development, mirroring Blum Center's combination of academic programs (GPP-equivalent), applied research, and field-based practice experiences.
• Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA): Cornell's CIPA trains graduate students in policy analysis and development practice through applied capstone projects, overlapping with the Blum Center's MDevEng-style intersection of professional graduate education and real-world field engagement.
• Duke Center for International Development: Duke's CID generates interdisciplinary research and graduate-level training on economic development, governance, and poverty reduction across the Global South. Like the Blum Center, it pairs degree programs with practitioner-oriented research and operates as a university-wide hub.
• Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality: Stanford's Center on Poverty and Inequality produces research on poverty and inequality in the US and internationally, sharing the Blum Center's interdisciplinary lens on global poverty and providing a comparable university-based hub for graduate training and policy-oriented research.
• Princeton Bobst Center for Peace and Justice: Princeton's Bobst Center supports interdisciplinary scholarship and training on peace, justice, and inequality, sharing the Blum Center's academic-activist orientation and its model of supporting student-led practice within a major research university.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/blum_center
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@BlumCenterBerkeley
• Facebookfacebook.com/blumcenter
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/blum-center
• Instagraminstagram.com/blumcenter

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about The Blum Center for Developing Economies