SkolTech seminar on innovation at MIT

Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (SkolTech, Skolkovo Tech) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) opened a four-week intensive workshop entitled SkTech/MIT Innovation Workshop 2012 on August, 6. Workshop participants will learn how to bridge the gap between scientific and technological capabilities and create significant innovative solutions, Skolkovo report says.

During the first week, the participants delved into information and energy technologies that were in the focus of the seminar, and started work on a series of practical projects. The group of 20 participants from Skolkovotech, eight from other Russian universities and six from Asian and European higher education institutions has formed teams to work on solving the problems of energy and/or information during the coming weeks.

The four-week intensive workshop will become a model for future courses that will cover the science, technology and innovation. Skolkovotech considers innovation as a distinctive feature of a university of the new type.

Technologies are the most attractive when we start playing with them, - Luis Perez-Breva says, a teacher and researcher from MIT who led the team that organized seminars on innovation. While preparing the workshop, which would give students the opportunity to prototype innovations and open the ways to affect the development of information and energy technologies, Perez-Breva worked closely with the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) Skolkovotech and Charles Cooney, a professor of chemical Engineering, the Director of the Center for Technological Innovations Deshpande and program manager of Skolkovotech and MTI in entrepreneurship and innovation.

It's a busy workshop, but the lectures and workshops strengthened my faith in myself, even if sometimes I am frightened to be an entrepreneur, - Marina Morozova said, a participant from Skolkovotech.

Participants will learn how to make a concept and carry it through the startups to the market, will listen to lectures by guest on leadership and ethics to recognize the trade-offs allowed by their technologies.

Mentoring, coaching and work in contact with others helped me to realize that, no matter how good my idea was, I would most likely have to repeatedly go back to the drawing board. That is the innovation - Peter Fankhauser says, a participant of the seminar from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

The core of the curriculum is based on four types of activities that affect innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership. This includes lectures that coordinate technology with systems and influence made, practical projects demonstrating the creation of a prototype, teamwork and team building, as well as building a network of contacts to improve communication skills. Each team will present its final innovative project to the audience that includes representatives of MIT innovation ecosystem.

Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skolkovotech) is a private educational and research university in Skolkovo near Moscow (Russia). It was established in 2011 in cooperation with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has been preparing new generations of researchers and entrepreneurs, promoting scientific knowledge and technological innovation in order to address the critical issues facing Russia and the world in the new millennium. The University is based on the best traditions of Russian and international educational and research institutions and practices, making special emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation, which is integrated into all aspects of research and education in Skolkovotech.