Course content
This 2-weeks course equips students with an introductory understanding of the challenges and decision-making processes involved in cultivating novel ideas. It offers a systematic, disciplined approach to ideation and execution. By examining insights from various disciplines, including arts, music, fashion, and scientific discoveries, students will gain valuable perspectives on how innovative concepts can be developed. The course delves into the cognitive foundations of creative and scientific thinking, exploring how to formulate problems, identify opportunities, manage failures, and make informed decisions on idea progression. Additionally, the course will cover aspects of the strategic management of innovation and technology within companies and the common obstacles companies face in their innovation efforts. Ultimately, this course equips students with the tools and strategies to bring their ideas to life, whether it's a thesis, a startup, a company project, a life project, or any other creative work.
Each lecture during the course will combine an understanding of innovation management theories and frameworks and the examination of how innovative ideas have been created, with specific case studies from the art, music, pharmaceutical, and fashion industries. The goal for students is to identify parallels and similarities across different industry domains, and be able to leverage those insights to fuel their own innovation efforts.
The course will include a variety of hands-on activities, such as mini-hackathon challenges where students form teams to develop innovative solutions to real-world problems within a limited timeframe. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to work on a real-world idea development project throughout the course. They can develop an idea from any field, drawing on their personal expertise, passions, and backgrounds. This project could be a new venture, a technological innovation, an app, a fashion product, a design, or an artistic piece. Students will also be required to maintain an "idea journal" to document their personal reflections, re-evaluations, and thoughts throughout the course and the idea development process.
Key topics:
- Basics of the cognitive processes behind creativity
- Idea generation and problem-solving
- Research methods to gather insights about a problem
- Barriers: Change, Inertia, and Ambidexterity
- Managing failures and experimentation
- Innovation and firm strategy
- Innovation ecosystem: incubators, accelerators, start-ups
- Gaining support: Communicate and pitch ideas effectively using storytelling techniques
See course description in course catalogue