Session Notes

Reading guides, concept summaries, discussion questions, and review cards for each session.

Each note summarises the key concepts for the week, frames the readings, and includes discussion questions and review cards. Read alongside — not instead of — the assigned texts. Notes for upcoming sessions are added as the course progresses.

#	Session title	Date
Module 1 — What Is Progress?
1	Introduction: Why Progress? Opening reflection: what is the world's biggest unsolved problem?	Tue Sep 1
2	The Chimpanzee Test Rosling — why experts score worse than random chance on global facts; the Gap Instinct	Thu Sep 3
3	Progress Getting Better — And What That Means Rosling Ch 2 — the Negativity Instinct; Sen — development as freedom	Tue Sep 8
4	The Great Enrichment UOE Ch 3 + Crawford — capitalism, the hockey stick, and why prosperity is invisible	Thu Sep 10
Module 2 — Institutions & Innovation
5–6	Science as a Public Good Nelson + Bush — why markets underprovide basic research and what institutions fill the gap	Sep 15–17
7	Cities 1: Renaissance Florence Ada Palmer + Chiasson — what makes certain places engines of innovation?	Tue Sep 22
8	Cities 2: Silicon Valley Economies of agglomeration — why do innovators cluster?	Thu Sep 24
9–11	Baltimore + Escaping the Poverty Trap Baltimore as classroom; Ang — how poor societies bootstrap growth	Sep 29 – Oct 6
Module 3 — Who Benefits?
12–16	Inequality, Race, Baltimore, Labor Piketty/Chetty, Wilkerson, BMI visit, Smith + Dickens	Oct 8–22
Module 4 — Ambition & Agency
17–21	Great Inventors, Guest Speakers, Top-Down Innovation Carlyle + Koyama; Teles; Collison & Cowen + Reinhardt	Oct 27 – Nov 10
Module 5 — Limits & Risks
22–24	Environment, Slowdown, Catastrophic Risk Ritchie; Thompson + Crawford Solutionism; existential risks	Nov 12–19
Module 6 — Looking Forward
25–28	Synthesis + Data Project Presentations Closing reflection: how has your thinking changed?	Dec 1–10