On the 3rd February 2021, Knowledge Exchange and Innovation launched its second i-Teams programme. i-Teams is supported by the business and innovation gateway team at the University of Kent and delivery partners, the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce. A programme funded by the Enabling Innovation, Research to Application project (EIRA).
What is i-Teams?
i-Teams links the most innovative and creative students with real world business challenges. Developed at MIT and brought over to the UK by the University of Cambridge in 2006, i-Teams has since been adopted by several UK Universities.
How does it work?
Participating students are placed into teams spanning all academic disciplines. Each team is set a challenge by one of our challenge sponsors, and then given eight weeks to provide innovative solutions to the challenge. Over the course of the programme students will cover idea creation, feasibility of solutions, commercialisation, financial impact, public relations and social media. They will increase their skills in team working, collaboration, and communication, and will develop their presentation skills. At the end of the eight sessions, each team presents their challenge to the company and an audience of business and academic experts at a Grand Final event on 17th March 2021.
The challenge sponsors:
The Research Network: TRN was founded as a spin out company from Pfizer Ltd in 2011 and has a central office located locally at Discovery Park, Sandwich. TRN’s aim is to build collaborative teams, linking Universities and research organisations companies to enable the building of interdisciplinary research teams and link together individuals with complementary expertise that results in game-changing innovation.
Medway Council | Young Lives Foundation: Like all local authorities, Medway Council has a statutory responsibility to ensure they are good Corporate Parents. They are parents for around 450 children in their care. As good Corporate Parents, they work with the Young Lives Foundation to provide a forum where children can share their views, experiences, wishes and ideas around their care. This is called a Children in Care Council, or in Medway, The Medway Children and Young People’s Council (MCYPC). Young people in care volunteer to be part of the council, representing their views of their peers.
IBM: IBM has one of the largest workforces in the world, and employees at Big Blue are referred to as “IBMers”. Regarded as one of the most innovative (both socially and technologically) the company was among the first corporations to provide group life insurance (1934), survivor benefits (1935), training for women (1935), paid vacations (1937), training for disabled people (1942) and led inclusion of minorities in key positions nearly 20 years before the US Civil Rights movement. IBM has always been a home for creative minds, from helping the Apollo space missions land on the moon to the discovery of fractals; from the technology behind laser eye surgery to Watson, the first cognitive computing system now being applied to health care and many other industries, IBM shapes the future of technology and society and has done for the last 110 years.
We are very proud to be working with these three amazing companies and the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce. Each company has been asked to set a challenge which could help their business and customer experience and we look forward to seeing what innovative solutions our students create to combat the company challenges.
The Challenges:
The Research Network: ‘How can we increase productive collaboration between UKC academics and between the University and local industry?’
“The TRN i-Teams challenge is focussing on new strategies to encourage and enable research collaboration between academics and industry. We are looking forward to ideas from the i-Teams team that can be followed up. We are also hope to gain helpful feedback on the TRN research collaboration phone App that is being piloted by academics at the University of Kent and with local research organisations in parallel with the i-Teams challenge.” Andy McElroy, Director, The Research Network
Young Lives Foundation: ‘How can we reach a wide and diverse group of children/young people to hear their views, thoughts and experiences of being in care and improving the system?’
IBM: ‘How can we address the problem of Social Isolation?’
“As an IBM Master Inventor, innovation is something I’ve always been fascinated by. Having the opportunity to collaborate with the University of Kent in helping shape the next generation of innovators is something I am thankful for. The ideas being generated at this event have the potential to be life changing for many, and I’m proud to be a part of it.” Jon McNamara, Master Inventor, IBM
What happens next: Over the next six sessions, students are meeting and discussing potential innovative solutions for their challenge. They have access to their team mentor, Tudor Price, Deputy Chief Executive, Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce, each team has an assigned Business Advisor and can raise queries with their business challenge sponsors during the course of the programme. All of the students engaged in an enterprise design thinking module provided by IBM to prime them ready for their challenge. At the final session on the 17th March, students will present their innovative ideas back to their assigned company along with a guest audience.
This year we are really pleased to still be able to offer this experience, despite the current pandemic situation, as an entirely online event. This is a huge opportunity for students to experience working on business challenges, and for the businesses to benefit from the student talent at Kent. We hope you join us in wishing the students all the best in their innovative solutions this year!
