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The myth of the lone genius is long gone – if you want to innovate and discover something truly new, you need there to be collaboration between a diverse group of people. This was the starting point for Tuomo Ryynänen, a teacher at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences when planning a course about innovation and project work.
The goal of the course was to teach the students about the innovation process, project management, and prototyping. One option for the students was to use Qt's tools to create a digital product innovation. To support that, The Qt Company's experts helped in the course planning, attended classes to speak with the students, and offered the group Qt's Educational Licenses.
But how do you teach someone to innovate?
Here are three tips on learning how to innovate from Haaga-Helia:
#1 Start doing: It's the process that counts
"When you want to discover something new, start the process today. And by starting, I mean actually doing things – not just theorizing. Of course, you often need to know at least the basics beforehand, but usually, the bar is set too high from the start. In this course, we wanted to create an environment where you can learn – and not worry about the outcome too much. Because when you start doing, you'll either succeed or learn, and both guide you forward", Tuomo explains.
#2 Innovation requires collaboration
"True innovation requires collaboration. We had a wide range of adult students with different kinds of backgrounds attend the course, and the course project was done in groups."
"Also, when planning the course, I wanted to gather a group of teachers with versatile knowledge bases as to provide different perspectives to students. It was really nice to work together as a team of teachers."
"The third level of collaboration happened with The Qt Company's experts, who participated in class. The students really liked this interaction as they were able to get help and answers to their questions directly from Qt."
#3 Innovation requires diversity
"The students came from various backgrounds, and we gave them the freedom to participate in the projects they found most meaningful. The groups’ projects benefitted from this diversity and created some amazing prototypes."
Student project: ChainLink, a cycling computer
One prototype created with Qt during Haaga-Helia's course was a cycling computer called ChainLink. The purpose of the product is to provide a solution for cyclists to safely use their mobile phone applications whilst cycling. ChainLink offers the durability of a regular cycling computer and the versatility of a mobile phone application in one package.
The prototype was done with Qt's Device Creation libraries and features for embedded systems.
Want to get the ball rolling?
With the freedom to explore and collaborate with a group of diverse people, the students were able to create a functioning prototype – I think that’s quite impressive!
