Open innovation at the Abbe School of Photonics

The Abbe School of Photonics (ASP) provides and coordinates the optics and photonics education of graduate and doctoral students at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. The internationalized Master's degree program is the key activity in training students in the optical sciences. The program is designed to provide them with the skills necessary to fill challenging positions in industry and academia. Here, an essential factor is ASP's close collaboration with more than 20 German photonics companies. To sustain these partners' future economic development, the availability of highly qualified employees is constantly required. Accordingly, these industrial partners, the European Union, the local state and the federal German government are strongly involved in the sustainable development of ASP's curriculum by both conceptual and financial engagements. The main goal is to promote the students' academic careers and job experience in the photonics industry as well as in academia. To open up the program to students from all over the world, all ASP lectures and courses are taught in English. ASP's qualification strategy is fully research-oriented and based on the principles of academic freedom, competitive research conditions and internationalization at all levels. The education program is complemented by a structured doctoral student support and a prestigious guest professorship program. Recently, ASP and partners have started a project to build an open photonics laboratory in order to foster innovative and co-creative processes. The idea follows well-established open innovation schemes e.g. in electronics. This Photon Garage (German: "Lichtwerkstatt") will bring together professionals and interested laymen from different backgrounds to approach pertinent challenges in photonics. Here, we will share our latest insights into the potentials and opportunities offered by this novel educative approach

Coupled open innovation processes and collective idea creation in multidisciplinary and multisectoral cooperation

In our study, we scrutinized multidisciplinary and multisectoral cooperation to learn about the factors which influence idea generation and coupled open innovation in cooperation. We specialized on multidisciplinary and multisectoral cooperation because those collaborations seem to have a high potential of developing disruptive technologies and innovation. Our study is a pre-test to set up a research model and to prepare further investigations. Purpose - The goal of this study has been the investigation of coupled open innovation processes and the mutual idea generation in multidisciplinary and multisectoral cooperation. We have scrutinized how idea creation and creativity processes work, and how the factors: partner's perspective (motivation, perceived risk, etc.) and cooperation background (rules, cooperation culture etc.) influence the performance of coupled open innovation processes in multidisciplinary and multisectoral consortiums. Originality/value - Our study will give suggestions about the composition of collaborative relationships to create trusting environments to foster idea creation and knowledge/know-how exchange between the participating partners. Thus, coupled outside in and inside out open innovation processes can enable the development of products and services with the potential for disruptive innovations initiated by the input of multidisciplinary technology and multisectoral application knowledge and experience

Vorausschauende Qualitätssicherung mit FMEA

Die FMEA hat sich in vielen Branchen als probates Werkzeug zur Risikobewertung und des RISIKOMANAGEMENTS durchgesetzt. Kerngedanke der FMEA ist die vorsorgende Fehlervermeidung anstelle einer nachsorgenden Fehlererkennung und -korrektur. Zwei Beispiele aus der Mikrosystemtechnik machen dies deutlich

Mit den Augen einer Fliege

Seit Jahrmillionen ist das Facettenauge der Insekten ein Erfolgsmodell. Ihr Volumen ist sehr viel kleiner als das eines klassischen Ein-Linsen-Systems, das wir Menschen besitzen, und durch ihre große Tiefenschärfe kommt es ohne Autofokus aus. Nun haben deutsche Forscher ein künstliches Facettenauge entwickelt, das etwa 0,2 mm dick ist und eine Auflösung von 60 x 60 Pixel hat. Damit passt es beispielsweise auf Kreditkarten, Folien oder Displays

Open source photonics at the Abbe School of Photonics: How Makerspaces foster open innovation processes at universities

The Abbe School of Photonics (ASP) provides photonics education of graduate and doctoral students at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. The main instrument for training students in optical sciences is a Master's degree program, which is open to international students, research-oriented and supported by German photonics industry. In this context, a conceptually new open lab Makerspace for photonics was established to support both the internal students in the realization of innovative and creative processes, as well as to build a strong and curious community of like-minded people from outside of the university. The photonics Makerspace provides all tools and materials needed to setup state-of-the-art optical instruments. Furthermore, it provides technical mentoring, open workshops and lectures. Partners from the photonics industry corroborate the process of making by well-established open innovation schemes and are integrated into the Makerspace with hackathon and innovation camp formats where the Makerspace users work on industry challenges. Finished and ongoing projects are transformed into freely accessible, open source hardware while a commercial exploitation of the projects is supported. Out of the broad topical spectrum of ongoing projects, two quite advanced examples are a low-cost smartphone-based 3D-scanner with a cloud-based, free software and a high-resolution microscope built of 3D-printed modules. For these projects, apart from hardware and software, also workshops and lectures are available. Other examples include a drone for medical applications in search and rescue, a smartphone-based lithography setup, a Raman-spectrometer, a camera array for meteorite detection, and many more. All activities of the Makerspace are scientifically investigated with special attention on the interaction between open innovation approaches and the Maker scene. Here, we will share our insights into potentials and opportunities offered by this novel educative approach