Hello, hello, hello! as some of you may already know, this edition of CHIC comes with some newness: In addition to the four existing teams with students from EPFL, ecal and UNIL, and thanks to the generous support of the Gebert-Rüf Stiftung, swissnex China and EPFL, the program is expanding its borders out of Lausanne. The new teams are coming from institutions (Hautes Écoles Spécialisées (HES) and University) in the cantons of Geneva, Fribourg, Ticino and Valais. So, in the first place, we would like to thank you all for embarking with us into this awesome journey.
This pilot kicked-off with the ideation week-end, with all the participants gathering in Lausanne. It started on Saturday morning with our low-tech social network, an icebreaker to get to know each other that always proves effective. This time, we had people not only from different institutions, but also from different cantons! Once the ice was broken, we got started with a session on teamwork and some practical exercises that took us to the lunch break.
Teamwork sessions on Saturday.
After refueling, the afternoon started with an exercise, conducted by Damien, using Hibachi, from last year, as a real case study. Then, Pablo introduced the CHIC´ers to the Internet of the Things and the concept of connected devices. At this point, the ideation itself began: first with a warm-up, and then brainstorming and mix & mash sessions.
This time we counted on the help of supervisors and coordinators from the different institutions, who joined us on Saturday and Sunday, and who helped us provide the students with very valuable feedback to guide them through the ideation process – thank you for your contribution!
An apero with pizzas & beers closed this very productive day, and the CHIC’ers left to do the check-in in the nearby hotel.
Sunday kicked off with another warm-up exercise to wake up the brains and put them in a creative mood. Then, we dedicated the morning to ideation, with a new iteration of brainstorming and mix & mash’ing. After the opening phase of the brainstorming, we moved into “closing mode” to merge ideas and try to converge towards one single problem statement; certainly not an easy task.
The final workshop touched upon the value proposition canevas, with some practical exercises to understand how to complete the problem statement using tools like the client interview, the customer journey map, the persona analysis, etc. Then, we finished the day, and the ideation week-end, introducing the next steps and discussing the material the teams will have to prepare for the next event: the project presentation.
Value proposition workshop on Sunday afternoon.
It was an intense but excellent week-end, and we are looking forward to seeing how the projects evolve.
A big thank you to all the participants!