UniBo Toolkit. New pre-incubation models
On the occasion of Social Business Change, Shifton supported the Knowledge Transfer Office (KTO) of the University of Bologna in the design and co-facilitation of an educational and pre-incubation experience on the topics of social entrepreneurship and sustainability.
Challenge
How can we create a pre-incubation experience that enhances the specificities of the University of Bologna’s Knowledge Transfer office, maximises its effectiveness towards external stakeholders and optimises its internal facilitation and commercialisation processes?
Strategy
The approach that inspires the entire course is that of learning by doing. To facilitate the acquisition of tools for the design and development of new business ideas by the students involved, Shifton has developed an approach based on the hybridisation of two different methodologies: Lean Startup and Design Thinking.
The former focuses on the compartmentalisation of activities leading to the launch of an idea and the execution of tests and experiments: research, hypotheses, testing and learning. The second is characterised by alternating moments of convergence (creating choices) and divergence (making choices) by passing between different iterative phases: research, ideation, prototyping and testing.
Process
The Knowledge Transfer Office of the University of Bologna is the unit that deals with the protection and valorisation of the University’s industrial property, spin-off and start-up companies, through initiatives and incubation processes aimed at developing and managing actions aimed at business creation. We started by understanding KTO’s needs through a listening workshop, and then went on to define a shared challenge and objectives with it. Based on the needs and opportunities that emerged, we co-designed a first part of the overall pre-incubation experience, going on to design a hackathon model and a toolkit to support the development and prototyping of project solutions during the hackathon.
In the next phase, together with the KTO experts, we facilitated the hackathon organised by UniBo at Social Business Change, prototyping and testing the effectiveness of the toolkit with the participants (male and female students).
Starting from the solutions selected during the hackathon, we started the second phase of co-designing the pre-incubation experience, divided into six phases, which allowed us to offer, together with the KTO experts, on-the-field support to the students involved. The six phases designed guided the students in the development and prototyping of their business ideas, allowing them to experience a direct and constant confrontation with the challenge partners, culminating in the development of a final pitch.
At the end of the course, we systematised and modelled the learnings and implemented the development process through a retrospective session with KTO.
The pre-incubation experience devised enhances KTO’s specificities, providing it with a distinctive and recognisable model and empowering its collaborators in the facilitation of the path within an interdisciplinary and intercultural context such as that of the university.
The practical and design-driven approach that characterises the entire experience fosters the cultivation and development of entrepreneurial ideas within the university context, providing students with common tools and methods that cut across their different backgrounds and facilitating the creation of a direct dialogue between university and enterprise. At the same time, by incorporating collaborative and group dynamics, the course nurtures the emergence of new relationships and conversations, becoming an opportunity for social and cultural exchange within the academic course.
Credits
Client
Knowledge Transfer Office, University of Bologna