The UIC IPD program is featured this week in BusinessWeek in an article by Michael Arndt.

Interdisciplinary Product Development is a year-long course that brings together students and faculty from three UIC colleges who study design, business, and engineering. All senior BFA and first year MFA students in UIC's Industrial Design program participate in this course. They work in cross-disciplinary teams to develop new product concepts with a corporate sponsor.

The course is held in the new UIC Innovation Center, a collaboration space designed specifically for IPD instruction as well as for interdisciplinary research between the academy and industry. The UIC Innovation Center includes facilities for physical and virtual prototyping and market research testing.

Dell is the current corporate sponsor of IPD. Past industry participants include Motorola, Cobra Electronics, Pactiv, Elkay Manufacturing, Rehco, Copco, and Whirlpool.