Design Futures For Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Course

Abstract

Based on the lack of futures studies for professionals who wish to innovate and create solutions that will bring an economic and social impact, this paper helps the entire university community to prepare and create a desirable future based on Human-Centered Design. The final product meets the expectations of a sustainable world, from the perspective of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The analysis was based on a design futures process, within the realization of interviews with the groups of interest, the evaluation, and treatment of data obtained through them. In addition, there was a debate on alternatives for futures that are not commonly seen, provoking speculation and breaking out of common thought, and the realization of a mini co-creative forum inviting them to create futures through drawings and newspaper headlines, then was possible to investigate the motivation and intentions behind these visions. With the results, statistical and ethnographic studies were made to obtain a future forecast. From the analysis it was possible to create the definition of the Future Intention and future alternatives based on the Future Cone, Polarity Map and finally, creation of a Minimum Viable Future. It was also possible to project future perspectives of the Undergraduate major in Electrical Engineering at the Federal University of Campina Grande, PB-Brazil, creating future scenarios of the course and proposing solutions in order to improve everyone’s experience and the technological impact in the Brazilian political-economic scenario.