Brandeis Design and Innovation (BDI) in the Library at Brandeis University supports innovation and entrepreneurship in a culture of access and inclusion.

We build foundational digital literacy and playfully built mastery, so that our community can have the autonomy to explore and express their innermost curiosity.

Our creative spaces enable students, faculty, staff and alumni to improve the world by creating things with their hands, hearts, and minds. By doing this we contribute to the university’s mission of excellence in teaching, learning, and research.

(Brandeis Design and Innovation was formerly known as the Brandeis Research, Technology, and Innovation department)

What We Do

Teaching and Learning

Curricular lectures in emerging technology; weekly trainings and workshops

Research Technology

Prototyping physical objects and new workflows, digitization, and digital fabrication

Hackathons and Events

24-hour design and prototyping challenges, talks, and sponsored Maker In Residence

Outreach

Talks, tours, and building community

Tools We Use

Digital Fabrication

Tools that physicalize the digital world (3D printers, lasercutters, CNC)

Digitization and 3D Scanning

Tools that digitize the real world (3D scanning, computer vision, sensor data acquisition)

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Hardware and software for building virtual reality and augmented reality environments (HMD, touch, gesture and multiscreen environments)

Embedded Systems

Hardware and software for prototyping embedded systems and robotics

“We are pragmatic dreamers; innovators with an outside-the-box question-everything mentality, with extreme respect for human rights and equal access, passionate about enabling all humans.”

Ian Roy ’05

Founding Head of Brandeis MakerLab