14 April 2019

CIRCD students with a humanities-take on innovation

Student entrepreneurs

Three students demonstrate how Innovation & Entrepreneurship is stimulated by employing analysis of real-life human needs and concerns.

Photo by Rasmus Molin Friis, uniavisen.dk.

In a feature article in Uniavisen (in Danish) the three students following the course 'Innovation og kreative kommunikationsløsninger' lay out their project: The establishment of a platform where visually impaired people can join up with companions for cultural events. 

In order to make sure that their idea is firmly grounded in the real-life needs and concerns of their target group(s), experiments with (voluntary and temporary) self-impairment, interviews and subsequent analysis are employed. And rightly so, according to their course lecturer, Brian L. Due to CIRCD:

"Nine out of ten startups die. The dominant factor is that the new product or service didn't have a market fit. Products are launched every day without targeting a real-life need. Those are stillborn", he says to uniavisen.dk.

Innovation strategy at UCPH

As part of the UCPH strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship (I&E) should be strengthened among students, Rector Henrik C. Wegener has proclaimed in Uniavisen. I&E shouldn't be seen as addenda to UCPH studies but should be seen as an integrated part of the studies themselves.

Apart from establishing an I&E network and making tools available for lecturers to stimulate creative thinking among their students, a project has been launched that should strengthen the practical and experimental aspects of courses. Even to such an extent that students sometimes voluntarily deprive themselves of their most important senses as part of the learning process.