InnoEM Skill Enhancement
innoEM prioritizes development of a skill set essential to lives in the 21st century: Creative Thinking, Innovative Thinking, ICT, Communication, and Teamwork. These skills are enhanced through successive courses and co-curricular activities from the first semester to the last. Each lesson and exercise are responsible for different levels of skill development; for example, foundation levels of creativity are planned to be implanted in the freshmen and juniors. The skills are gradually strengthened as students are progressing toward the higher years.
Creative thinking is among the first skills regularly mentioned as the skill of the 21st century. It is a skill you need in order to create something new, something different, something wild, or something that most people would not think of. Solutions to a problem are probably hidden in a place that you have never thought of before. Creative thinking is not only for an engineer or an innovator; it is a skill for everyone. We can improve the productivity of our routine simply by opening the mind, overcoming prejudices, and changing how we do things. Lives can also be much more fun with creativity. So let’s start our day with something creative.
“Creativity is Intelligence Having Fun!” – Albert Einstein
When people talk about “Creativity,” they would think of “Imagination.” Although “Creativity” and “Innovation” are closely related. Innovation, however, focuses mainly on ‘Practicality.’
New ideas come up from creative thinking. Transforming them into something practical and viable is a different story. It needs innovative thinking.
innoEM prioritizes building up practical skills, especially implementation thinking. Implementation is the practice that follows any conceptual thought for something to actually happen. At innoEM, students are guided through the development of an innovation, starting from generating creative ideas until they become viable business products.
Adaptable
As the world is moving faster and faster, going further and further, disruption changes quickly, massively, and unpredictably, adaptability is a skill helping us transition smoothly from one situation to another. It is undeniable that those who respond to changes more effectively will grab a golden opportunity. We can see that more and more companies have left the market no matter how big they are, just because they are too rigid to adopt changes. Actually, bigger, on many occasions, means less adaptable. Through innoEM, students are constantly facing new situations, new problems, and new scenarios, only to hone up their adaptability. It may be challenging, but the skill is worth it.
Being an innovator means you will be working with something that has probably never existed before. Therefore, what innovators must have in common is an open mind. It is a willingness to accept comments or different ideas. Comments and criticisms are for sure expected when we propose something new. Denying those voices could cost you unimaginable loss. You will have to be open enough to listen…. carefully listen to your customers’ expectations, which may not come out straightforwardly. Remember, it is what you develop for your customer, not your own.
Being responsible means being accountable for whatever may come after your action. It is a character to which everyone should adhere. Especially PSU students, you commit to the royal philosophy “Benefit of Mankind.” Whatever you are planning to do must not cause loss or damage to society.
Innovation can only be achieved through multidisciplinary team working. Effectively coordinating teamwork is challenging but not as tricky as managing people from different fields to sit around the same table and make them look at the same goal.
As an innovator, to be able to communicate effectively is a must. Communication is a way to transfer ideas or information for particular purposes. You can communicate to provide understanding, to inform, persuade, provide knowledge, clarify, etc. Communication can be performed verbally, visually, or physically through body language, gestures, and tone. Either mode of communication is an essential soft skill that is vital for career success.
ICT has become an essential skill for everyone. It means an ability to understand and apply a range of digital tools, computer programs, software, and other applications. Being a master of this skill is like you are a knight armed with the best sword. It gives you a competitive edge. It helps save cost, minimize time, simplify the task, or even pamper your work to make it look more spacious and professional. As an innovator, ICT opens opportunities to approach our target groups, collect their insights, and launch our innovations.
System integration means putting together systems that usually are disparate to increase value to customers and, at the same time, improve the productivity of the company. innoEM cadets will practice this skill through their innovation capstone projects. Taking off with the first of three consecutive project series- Shaping Your Idea, students under the guidance of experienced business mentors and university researchers will formulate their creative and innovative ideas, leveraging real-world scenarios to become a product concept ready for further development. Starting up Your Startup is the second project for students to practice crafting their business plans in an innovative manner.
“Launching to Market”, the last project is named to mark the final stage of their innovation development, which is project commercialization. It is well understood that some deep-tech reliant products could take years to develop before being released to the market. Students, therefore, are allowed to pursue their interest in continuing research to enhance the product functionality and reliability beyond their final project.
