School:Universidad de los Andes

Promoting student innovation and entrepreneurship

Innovation has always been deeply embedded at the heart of the Universidad de los Andes. From the very core of the institution –it’s mission statement– can be seen to play a key role: “the University of the Andes is an autonomous, independent and innovativeinstitution that fosters pluralism, tolerance and respect for ideas [...]”

Student innovation and entrepreneurship is highly endorsed in certain faculties, both inside and outside of the classroom. The Business and Design Schools are the leaders in the creation and implementation of I&E opportunities in the classroom, with the Industrial Engineering department trailing not far behind. More and more, courses and study programs have been modified in order to further interest and expose students to I&E. These courses teach students how important it is to keep their minds open to everything I&E has to offer, and help them harvest finer entrepreneurial skills. Some of these courses have students dedicate the whole semester’s work to developing a project of their choosing, while others expose them to real-life cases and make them think outside the box.

Even though most projects deviate and stay in just dreams, there are participation circles that step in to help student entrepreneurs. These include Empreandes, which helps them ideate a stronger and more innovative core at the beginning of their entrepreneurship , andCentro de emprendimiento, where certified mentors asses them with interactive workshops and business-oriented makerspace. Also, when students need guidance through their entrepreneurial process, big scale entrepreneurship accelerators like Despega Colombia, can help propel a student’s own particular idea.

Universidad de Los Andes has a variety of tools and groups that promote students throughout the entire process of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Encouraging faculty innovation and entrepreneurship

Faculty innovation and entrepreneurship is encouraged a matter of great relevance at the Universidad de Los Andes. Given its long-established national renown as the pioneer university in terms of R&D, it was just a matter of time before innovation and entrepreneurship ensued as a practice and became key to the faculty production at Los Andes. At the moment, investigative portfolios and academic production from the faculty members is classified in one of 5 big topics that help the nation at a macro level:

Additionally, the University also provides teachers –not just students– with practical tools to develop their profiles as entrepreneurs and innovators. For example, many schools facilitate student-teacher contact and courses in order to work on investigation related to their careers and interests. Another example is Conécta–TE(an entrepreneurship epicenter dedicated to innovation in education and technology), which offers the course “Conecta-TE en Vacaciones”: an institutional initiative that seeks to provide the teachers of the University of Los Andes with spaces to design innovations that can be applied in their classes.

Actively supporting the university technology transfer function 

The Universidad de Los Andes is currently working on developing a strong Technology Transfer Office. At the moment, the university relies on the Office for Technology and Knowledge Transfer (OTTC, for its initials in Spanish) to carry out the functions of an institution with this reason of being. The OTTC currently encourages the members of the university to create patents, work with outside businesses with which the university holds alliances, and interact with non-profits and other organizations, in order to commercialize the different creations of the university’s student community’s leaders.

Unfortunately, most of the students have not been exposed to its dynamics and even its purpose, mostly because not everyone is interested in using this resource. Therefore, there is a lack of information regarding its existence. It is of great importance for the University to improve the reach and the acceptance of this program within the University environment.

Related Links

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Universidad de los Andes Student Priorities: Universidad de los Andes Student Priorities

Student Contributors

Pedro Juan Isaza

Camila Buenaventura

Nicolás Castro

Diana Solano