Resource:How to organize an Innovation Week at your school
Contents
Introduction to The Innovation Week
The innovation week is a week during the school year full of events related to Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It focuses on the 80/20 approach which is based on 20% self contribution to generate 80% of outcome; in other words, the organizers do not need to create the entire activities and events in the innovation week. This goal can be achieved by contributing with different parties who share the same interest of helping the students gain most necessary skills and knowledge of I&E and its importance in the 21st century.
Goals
- S- specific
- M- measurable
- A- achievable
- R- relevant
- T- time based
Logistics
Logistics is an aspect that will take up a lot of time when planning an innovation week. You will need to be very careful in planning everything. The more secure you set it up, the easier it will be to define a budget. However, make sure that when you ask people to speak at your event that it is clear that you can't set everything in stone yet. After you have an approved budget and all costs are approved by your sponsors, you can start with the definite planning. This will be a lot easier since you now can make fixed appointments.
Audience
Audience is an important aspect that has to be considered while organizing an Innovation Week. The greater the number, the better it is. Some of the ways to ensure a room full of audience include
- Promoting and advertising the event.
- Keeping the best interests of the audience involved.
- Offering them something more than that is expected.
Cost & Funding
Costing and Funding may become a hurdle if not planned properly. Start by chalking out the requirements and resources. Approach people (Like head of your school, NGO worker etc) who are in the same field of interest and who can help you to fund this session at your school. A proper planning can help you optimize your costs.
Activities
The first task when organizing an innovation week at your school is to choose a date. Instead of searching for a free week when no events are being held, do the opposite and host your event at the same time. This way, your innovation week activity will recieve lots of promotion and attract a larger audience
The activity itself should appeal to the masses and leave the audience with a fresh perspective. You want their attention the minute they arrive, and want them leaving feeling like they experienced something new. Decide what you want your audience members to takeaway from the activity, and how you want them to feel throughout. Examples include Ted Talks, and makerspace events. Another way to attract students is to give them incentives such as free food and prizes.
Also, set reach goals. These are goals that are almost impossible to obtain, but are great to work towards and will benefit your event whether or not its achieved.
Promotion
Promoting your event helps bring a large number of participants. This can help you bring sponsorships or funds for arranging the innovation week.Make sure to cover every area of your campus and reach out to maximum number of students. Promotion is one of the major tasks for achieving a successful innovation week.
Evaluation
- Making sure to increase the number of the students who join the innovation week organized in our school and make sure that they are really interested to join the event with us.
- Present any form of discussion more delightfully as we need students to gain interest in attending more events like this.
- Receive feedback from the presenters since they were facing and interacting with the audience. By receiving the feedback from the presenter, we don't need to make a lot of surveys and survey all the attendance.
