South Island Enterprise & Innovation Workshop Success

Over a week in May, South Island Riddet Institute students had the opportunity to undertake the Enterprise and Innovation workshop led by Dr Chris Kirk which was first hosted by the Institute in June of last year. This year, we had 9 students from University of Otago (Dunedin), Lincoln University (Christchurch) & University of Auckland (based in Christchurch) participate in the Workshop.

The workshop gives students an insight into how innovation may be applied commercially in a R&D context and includes advice on how to pitch a research or business opportunity to a funding committee. It is a hands-on experience based on international best practice ‘lean’ methodology and involves student teams working on real technology examples and conduct interviews of potential customers and business partners in the intervening week. As with last year, the student teams created their own technology ideas: a low GI gluten-free cookie and a gut-friendly cracker.

The students involved had high praise for the workshop, feeling they had learnt a lot whilst having fun at the same time. We look forward to running another North Island workshop for our newly started and aligned NI students.