Innovation Day at UCPH: bringing your idea to life
Entrepreneurship is not easy – if it were, everyone would do it. How do you make the transition from idea to reality? How can you as a teacher support innovation in your teaching? These were some of the questions that students and teachers got answered at UCPH’s Innovation Day.
As 150 students and 90 educators gathered for UCPH’s Innovation Day in October, the constant buzz of people exchanging ideas and experiences was a great indicator that innovation is indeed the zeitgeist of the 21st century. A collaboration between UCPH, Copenhagen Business School and the Technical University of Denmark, the Innovation Day aims at helping prospective entrepreneurs make the transition from idea to business. Innovative ideas ranged from apps tracking allergies to ways of reducing meat consumption by eating a creamy pea soup.
An exchange of innovative tips between students. Photo: Jonas Fogh
Incorporating innovation in teaching
The Innovation Day also presented teachers with ways to incorporate entrepreneurship and innovation into their teaching. Several workshops were set up, for instance concentrating on how to attract external partners to participate in the teaching, or how to encourage student innovation in general. According to Associate Professor in Rhetoric, Lisa Villadsen, innovation should be part of university studies – a modus operandi that students can bring with them when they graduate.
No jobs? No worries – create your own
Entrepreneurship is not just about becoming the next unicorn of Silicon Valley – it’s also about creating jobs. Not least your own, adds Hanne Harmsen from Innovation Fund Denmark, a fund investing in initiatives aimed at creating growth and employment in Denmark. Several students and alumni have done just that, and they gave inspiring speeches throughout the day. Many others have teamed up with students from different academic backgrounds or perhaps from different universities, and are on their way to bringing their ideas to life.