By Titus Venverloo, Fellow, University of Twente From August 11 to 20, 2019, the University of Twente Innovation Fellows hosted their regional meetup in the Netherlands. With 31 students from over 15 countries joining the program, the stage was set for an amazing nine days full of design thinking, leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship, as well […]
Fellows collaborate with faculty and administrators to redesign and create courses at their schools. This story is an excerpt from Designing for Change. Kathryn Christopher found herself in a unique position at Grand Valley State University. She had completed a bachelor’s degree in product design and manufacturing engineering and was one year into her master’s degree […]
Quite a few Fellows have found or created positions to do their innovation work in their university. This story is an excerpt from Designing for Change. When La Salle Fellow Onesimus Morrison was a sophomore, he attended a seminar on innovation and entrepreneurship taught by Professor Steve Melick, director of the La Salle Center for Entrepreneurship. […]
Fellows often use start-ups as a way to involve other students in innovation and entrepreneurship. This story is an excerpt from Designing for Change. When Fellow David Shull arrived at Michigan Tech in 2010 as a computer software engineering major, he dreamed of working for Apple. However, he discovered that his school’s connection to Apple was […]
A number of Fellows start student clubs and organizations as a vehicle to transform learning at their schools. This story is an excerpt from Designing for Change. In 2016, Vanessa Ganaden, a business major from Cal State Fullerton, discovered an interesting club at her school that connected engineering and business students. At the time, she […]
University Innovation Fellows organized LOOP, the first-ever Latin American Innovation Week and the UIF Latin American Meetup in 2018. by Leticia Britos Cavagnaro There is learning about the world, and then there is immersing yourself in the world, and learning as you figure out how you can make an impact. Often times we think that […]
15 Fellows joined UIF co-directors Humera Fasihuddin and Leticia Britos Cavagnaro for SXSW in Austin, TX, in March 2019. They spent several days together learning from speakers, engaging participants, and connecting with one another. Below are a few of their reflections on the experience. A Scoot Through SXSW By Jessica Aldrich, Wichita State University After […]
Transforming higher education into a tool for social innovation was the theme of the Ashoka U Exchange conference. Five Fellows and UIF program co-directors Leticia Britos Cavagnaro and Humera Fasihuddin, held activities and attended sessions at the February 2019 event in San Diego, CA. Below are the Fellows’ reflections on the experience: All of us […]
75 members of the UIF community + an expanding innovation destination + beautiful sand and sun for miles = Eastern Hemisphere Meetup in the United Arab Emirates. Check out the materials and other resources from the event. Picture it: a place where you can go sand dune surfing, design a new innovation strategy for your […]
350 University Innovation Fellows and faculty traveled to the Bay Area for the 2019 Silicon Valley Meetup.
A new book by MIT Press, Does America Need More Innovators?, features a chapter by UIF program co-directors UIF program co-directors Humera Fasihuddin and Leticia Britos Cavagnaro have written a chapter in a newly published book by MIT Press. The book, Does America Need More Innovators?, is an exploration of today’s global imperative to innovate, […]
Our team is thrilled to announce that a book about the UIF program has been published! The book, Designing for Change: Using social learning to understand organizational transformation, was written by renowned social scientists Beverly and Etienne Wenger-Trayner. The book is a case study of the UIF program and brings to life decades of the […]
Applications are live for the University Innovation Fellows program Fall 2019 training cycle! The deadline is March 31, 2019.
Bucknell Fellow William Wall created a brand new design thinking pre-orientation program in just 10 months. by William Wall, University Innovation Fellow, Bucknell University In November 2017, Bucknell’s newest UIF cohort took on the Silicon Valley Meetup. With so many amazing minds and inspirational speeches, I left charged with excitement to make big changes on […]
Fellows from around the U.S. took part in Michigan Tech’s Regional Meetup in October 2018. The Michigan Tech “Colorful Creations” Regional Meetup set out to combine the dramatic landscape of fall foliage with two days immersed in the community innovation culture. The Tech Fellows and faculty hosted 20 participants from seven schools for the Meetup, […]
By Ghanashyam S University of Twente, one of the first institution from Europe to become part of the uifamily, hosted the first ever European Regional Meetup from August 16-20, 2018. 28 people attended, including Fellows and faculty champions from the U.S. and India as well as UIF team members. Twente is hosting their second European […]
358 students from 96 higher education institutions in 16 countries have been named University Innovation Fellows. The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. Fellows work to ensure that their peers gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to compete in the economy of the future and make […]
Fellows from India have conducted design thinking workshops at several large global conferences. JSSATE Fellow Shivanika Shah shares reflections from several of those events. By Shivanika Shah, Fellow, JSS Academy of Technical Education, Noida The UIF program welcomed its first Fellows from India in Fall 2016, thanks to an international initiative supported by Google. Since […]
By Katie Dzugan When we hold the Silicon Valley Meetup in California every year, we invite a huge number of people: 250+ Fellows, 24 FABs (UIF leaders/support), 20-30 faculty champions, speakers, special guests and more. Due to space constraints at the d.school and at Google, we’re limited to 300 people. Fitting all of these people […]
University Innovation Fellow Jessica Carlson walks us through a year in the life of a Fellow from application to impact. by Jessica Carlson In late October 2016, I was nominated to the first University Innovation Fellows (UIF) Leadership Circle at Menlo College with three other students: Yasmin Gomez, Maxwell Barnes and Russell Perkins. From interviews […]
The March 2018 Silicon Valley Meetup brought together 280 University Innovation Fellows and faculty for four days of learning and bonding over the shared mission of change in higher education. Intense, shared experiences have a way of connecting people to one another in a special and long-lasting way. The University Innovation Fellows Silicon Valley […]
The UIF team is excited to share some important changes to our program that we believe will result in even greater impact on your campus. University Innovation Fellows and their faculty champions know just how often we emphasize prototyping, gaining feedback, and continually improving. Just as we ask Fellows to do this as they […]
258 students from 64 higher education institutions in 9 countries have been named University Innovation Fellows. The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. Fellows work to ensure that their peers gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to compete in the economy of the future and make […]
330 students and faculty from 80 schools joined us for our program’s fifth birthday during the Silicon Valley Meetup on November 16-20, 2017. by Laurie Moore It was a weekend of firsts, perfect for a birthday celebration. When the University Innovation Fellows program turned five years old in Fall 2017, our program team decided […]
450 University Innovation Fellows and faculty took part in a star-studded event to design ways for music to solve problems and bring awareness to social causes. by Laurie Moore The scene was wonderfully chaotic. Throughout the many spaces of the d.school at Stanford University, music blared from cell phones, speakers, and out of headphones. One […]
229 students from 62 higher education institutions in 10 countries have been named University Innovation Fellows. The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. Fellows work to ensure that their peers gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to compete in the economy of the future and make […]
Applications are live for the University Innovation Fellows program Spring 2018 training cycle! Please apply here: http://universityinnovationfellows.org/apply/application/. Process This application is team-based; students and a faculty champion will work on one application together on the platform YouNoodle. Each team member will have access to and be able to complete their piece of the application. Once […]
The Chronicle of Higher Education published an in-depth article about our program’s Teaching and Learning Studio faculty workshop. What does it look like to learn and apply design thinking in higher education? This was the focus of a Chronicle of Higher Education article about our program’s Teaching and Learning Studio faculty workshop. The feature article, […]
Changemakers from schools across India came together in Bangalore to reimagine public higher education. When our program partnered with Google’s India developer training initiative, we knew that this collaboration would mean multiple trips abroad to understand the higher education system there. We never could have imagined that this would lead to our team standing in […]
