FIS 337 : Innovation and Global Development

Course Overview:

FIS 337 is a course that explores global development, sustainability and intersection of technology, international systems, and human well-being. The course I took was centered around the 2030 FIFA World Cup, where the objective of the course was to look at different aspects of the event such as globalization, economic development, migration, and human rights through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals. Several readings and frameworks are provided as part of this course to enable students to leverage literature to contribute to a final project.

Final Project: Think Beyond 2030

In FIS 337, I completed a final project analyzing the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted across Morocco, Portugal, and Spain—spanning two continents, Africa and Europe. Through this project, I examined how mega sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup influence global development, economic growth, climate policy, migration, innovation, and human dignity using the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as an analytical framework.

An important part of the project was analyzing the FIFA World Cup as a cross-national development initiative, along with it being a mega sporting event. I explored themes of soft power, globalization, infrastructure modernization, technological risk, surveillance, environmental impact, labor migration, and displacement. I engaged with interdisciplinary scholarship, including Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom, and discussions on economic growth and how it related in a cross-national context.

Through this report, I learned that development cannot be solely measured through GDP or infrastructure. True development for any country must account for human freedom, environmental sustainability, migration effects, and participation. This also led to the realization that global events must be designed with multicultural sensitivity and long-term sustainability in mind to ensure equality between countries participating in this initiative.

Reflection:

This experience broadened my understanding of what "joy" means at a global scale. Sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup are meant to promote excitement, joy, unity, and pride. However, this joy is not automatic; it depends on whether the development of this event respects the dignity of communities and sustains the environment.

As someone at the intersection of advancing technology such as AI and research, this course challenged me to think beyond performance metrics and consider how systems affect people across different cultural contexts. Just as mega-events must balance excitement and joy with sustainability and inclusion, technological advancements must prioritize human well-being.

The value of this course has been extremely important to me when I am now writing reports or strategizing ideas in my research. It has taught me to consider all of the different entry points when developing a technical solution while keeping a human-centered approach to it. 

Overall, this course solidified the feeling that any advancement, in sports or technology, must be inclusive and sustainable to be meaningful.

Joy of Living Aspect:

The Joy of Living theme emphasizes improving quality of life, promoting human dignity, and creating systems that allow individuals and communities to thrive. Through this project, I was able to solidify the meaning of Joy of Living through three areas:

• Collective Cultural Joy: The World Cup represents shared global celebration. When designed responsibly, such events foster belonging, cultural exchange, and unity across borders.

• Human Agency Expansion: Joy of Living requires agency, meaning opportunities should be expanded rather than displaced or taken away. This is an analysis I did in terms of migration that occurs due to major world events such as the FIFA World Cup.

• Sustainable and Inclusive Futures: I examined how the development of this major world event can affect the sustainability of the areas in which it occurs. True joy cannot exist in an area where there is no sustainability.