Education for innovation: engineering, management and design multidisciplinary teams of students tackling complex societal problems through Design Thinking

[EN] Innovation education involves a different approach both for professors and students. It requires understanding people, technology and business to develop truly innovative solutions that can succeed in the market. The aim of this paper is to analyze the benefits, learning outcomes and self-learning perception about innovation from students participating in an innovative learning experience co-developed by an Electrical Engineering School, a Business School and a Design Institute. Challenge Based Innovation (CBI) is a program created by CERN to host educational projects where multidisciplinary teams of students tackle innovation challenges. The objective is to design solutions to social problems through Design Thinking. It was observed that engineering students, after this learning experience increase their understanding of user’s needs and the relevance of focusing on them when approaching innovation challenges. Also, they improve their ability to ideate break-through solutions thanks to a better understanding of the relationship between people, business and technology due to their in-depth interaction with management and design students. Furthermore, their self-confidence is significantly increased along with their entrepreneurial skills. The level of engineering student’s understating of innovation as a whole is higher with this approach compared to standard design-build projects performed at the Engineering Schools.Keywords: Design Thinking, Innovation, Challenge Based Education, Multidisciplinary projectshttp://ocs.editorial.upv.es/index.php/HEAD/HEAD18Charosky, G.; Hassi, L.; Leveratto, L.; Papageorgiou, K.; Ramos, J.; Bragos, R. (2018). Education for innovation: engineering, management and design multidisciplinary teams of students tackling complex societal problems through Design Thinking. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1081-1087. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD18.2018.81501081108

Prototyping the future of learning: reflections after seven iterations of Challenge-Based Innovation (2014-2020)

This article presents the reflections of a multidisciplinary team working on CERN’s Challenge-Based Innovation (CBI) since 2014. These reflections on pedagogy and innovation are positioned at the intersection of experiential learning, design thinking and challenge-driven education.Drawing from seven editions of what has become “CBI Fusion Point,” we present our story as an ongoing journey of experimentation with various formats and methods in response to broader shifts in education. Our article contributes to a better understanding of the characteristics and challenges that CBI-like programs pose and the infrastructure and support that they require.Peer ReviewedObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::9 - Indústria, Innovació i InfraestructuraObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::8 - Treball Decent i Creixement EconòmicObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::4 - Educació de QualitatPostprint (published version

IdeaSquare report graphics

IdeaSquare report 2019-2020 graphic

Challenge based education: an approach to innovation through multidisciplinary teams of students using Design Thinking

This work aims to describe and discuss the benefits and learning outcomes detected along four iterations of a learning experience carried out by three institutions: ESADE Business School, IED Istituto Europeo di Design and the Telecom Engineering School of UPC, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Mixed teams of students from the three institutions face open innovation challenges with societal interest through Design Thinking. This study is focused on the learning outcomes of engineering students, compared to the ones obtained by Telecom engineering students that follow standard project-based courses. The students spend 3-4 weeks at IdeaSquare, a creative environment created at CERN Meyrin site in Switzerland, where they can consult and interact with scientists and knowledge transfer experts about possible applications and uses of CERN technologies in the student's proposed solutions. One example of a prototyped solution is a low-cost sensor-based system to detect malfunction in water wells in Africa, which uses SMS-based communication and cloud-based solutions to manage wells repairs. As a result, the ICT engineering students increase their awareness of user needs and the relevance of the problems to focus on when tackling a complex challenge. They also increase their ability to ideate more disruptive and high-impact solutions thanks to their understanding of the »big picture» based on their interactions with design and business students.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Mixing design, management and engineering students in challenge-based projects

The aim of this work is to describe and discuss the benefits and limitations that have been detected along two iterations of a learning experience that has been carried out by three institutions located in Barcelona: Istituto Europeo di Design (IED), ESADE Business School and UPC-Telecom BCN. Design, management and ICT engineering students are mixed together in multidisciplinary teams to face a design challenge along a semester. The framework of these projects is the Challenge Based Innovation (CBI) program, a structure promoted by CERN in which students from different disciplines and countries are challenged to design solutions to social needs following the Design Thinking approach. The international and multidisciplinary teams perform several stays (four weeks in total) at IdeaSquare (http://ideasquare.web.cern.ch/), a creative environment built at the CERN Meyrin site, in Switzerland. They also devote a weekly working day in their home institutions along a semester. In that day they work in multidisciplinary teams with coaching from faculty of the three institutions. While at IdeaSquare, the students consult with scientists and knowledge transfer experts about their challenges and about the possible use of CERN technologies in the proposed solutions. The challenges are quite open and, according to the Design Thinking methodology, the students follow several divergence-convergence phases: they devote approximately one third of the time identifying relevant needs into the challenge scope and choosing one of them. Another third identifying possible solutions for the chosen need and converging to a single one through low-resolution prototyping and testing. Finally, the last third is spent exploring the business aspects and possible technological implementations of the solution and developing a functional prototype, able to provide a proof of concept of the idea. All students (6 per team) participate in all phases of the design process. The evident benefits of this multidisciplinary approach are the enrichment of the ideation process thanks to the coexistence of different points of view and the ability of going deeper in the different aspects of the implementation respect of the separate capabilities of each partner. Although the whole experience has several interesting aspects, the aim of this paper is to emphasize the aspects related with engineering education. A constructive confrontation between Design Thinking and Analytical Design approaches arises and several tradeoffs have to be set. Usually, the UPC engineering students start their regular projects from requirements defined by the faculty or by external stakeholders, and often with a-priori restrictions about the technology. In this experience, however, they participate in the conceiving phase but have less time to develop completely a complex final product and to learn about technology along this process. On the other hand, the ability of developing disruptive and high-impact solutions is higher with this approach, although engineering students tend to take into account technology restrictions even in the early phases of the process. The review of relevant literature on design approaches and on challenge-based learning, the considerations about the benefits, limitations and tradeoffs and the lessons learnt will be developed in the extended version of this paper.Peer Reviewe