Changes

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:medium;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-6207b368-6576-9d67-dafc-eb09638e714f"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robotic systems enthusiast mechanical engineer Jonathan Bopps was the current University Innovation Fellow for the online session of “ The Secrets of Fostering Innovation Within Any Group”. Our team members Maia Peterson, Sofia Muñiz Irazabal, Surya Kosaraju and Canberk Bal were all deeply interested in the topic to brainstorm and exchange their ideas on the aim of hearing our interviewee’s story. Jonathan was tremendously open-minded and informative with his answers while approaching each participant. He started the discussion by addressing his willingness to hear what does innovation stand for each participant and their personal stories on innovative activities.</span></span></span></p><div><br/></div><div>= Determine the mission =</div><span style="font-size:medium;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-6207b368-681e-876a-7f25-a57825021f1e"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Using innovation as a force to contribute back to our community, by also fostering the entrepreneurship spirit on campus.”</span></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">Our aim is to introduce innovation as something that can be a start and that can grow, a complement for building a spirit of innovation in our community in the interaction with the educational community. This process start in the classroom, and innovation for us is needed to happen interacting with people. So our main objective is being able to foster innovation and make people in our community to establish connections, to put their ideas together and find the way to make they happen.</span>  <div>= Idea Generation and Iteration =</div><div><span style="font-size:medium;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-6207b368-681f-b729-071e-c7e0a657a7f6"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the examples Jonathan walked us through where he fostered innovation was his involvement with the newfound makerspace on campus. Finding himself on a campus of engineering and tech students who loved their pajamas and the comfort of their dorms, Jonathan and his team followed the Design Thinking process to come up with a way to attract people to the makerspace. The ideation step is one of the most important steps in the innovation process: the more ideas produced the more creative the ideas become. As such, Jonathan was also an advocate for sharing bad ideas as it ignites discussion general fuels interest among participants.</span></span></span>  </div><div><span style="font-size:medium;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-6207b368-6820-0fc8-41cd-daa74fc6884a"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jonathan and his team were able to continually improve their process and the experience of visitors in the space by practicing feedback loops and utilizing their effective communication skills. Engaging the users of the space, with food for example, yielded much higher results in terms of feedback they could use to continually improve the space. This aligns with the iterative prototyping part of the design process. By making informed decisions based on user feedback, Jonathan and his team were able to identify and implement innovative solutions to relevant problems the makerspace was having.</span></span></span><div><br/></div></div>