Abstract

Innovation is to gather new ideas to create values, while entrepreneurship is to solve problems with innovative, practical solutions. The project supervisor and his collaborators have promoted design thinking and entrepreneurship. Yet, with the growing interest in entrepreneurship, teaching can be enhanced on campus with the development of prototyping, which brings ideas into practice through model building.

To solve the problems, acquisition of equipment and well utilizing currently established space through training users, integrating lessons, and holding activities, is needed. In this proposal, we propose:

1. Additional equipment:
• CNC machine to be purchased in Pi Centre and University Learning Garden
• Related software for the machine
2. Trainings on basic machine usage
3. Regular support to users
4. Toolkit developed to integrate into entrepreneurship/ innovation classes
5. Workshops for teaching staff to promote prototyping to different classes
6. Competitions / Activities for students to apply the concept of prototyping

After launching the scheme, we will evaluate the effectiveness in the following aspects:

1. Usage of machines
2. Numbers of classes adoptions
3. Students’ satisfaction
4. Participating rate of workshops and activities
5. Questionnaires for early adopters

We expect prototyping culture to sustain after this project because of:

1. Further classes adoption of the concept of prototyping
2. After-class usage of machines by students may use the machine and space
3. On-going student activities and competitions.

Brief write-up

Project objectives

Entrepreneurship is to solve problems with innovative, practical solutions. Prototyping is an essential process of entrepreneurship. This project strives to nurture prototyping activities into student learning and informal activities so that these activities can be sustained and extended beyond academic curriculum. In running the project, we have enhanced prototyping activities on campus with formal and informal education, such as workshops, model-building, and joint-school competition.

Activities, process and outcomes

1. Co-organized by Library serial workshops organized for CUHK Faculty members, researchers and students (2018 - 2019);
2. Training workshops for participants of the Vice-Chancellor’s cup of Student Entrepreneurship (VCCE) Boot Camp (2018 & 2019);
3. Organized Hong Kong Data Journalism Boot Camp 2018 and Data and Media Hack 2019, co-organized by CUHK and HKBU;
4. Cyberport Guangdong – HK Young Entrepreneur Boot Camp held by CfE in November 2018;
5. Recruiting and training 10 interested student teams for a 3-day EDB funded Boot Camp (2018-2019).

Deliverables and evaluation

1. All students have demonstrated professionalism and strong commitment to promote prototyping, design thinking and maker culture in CUHK;
2. More than 400 CUHK students have participated in workshops and activities organized/co-organized by CfE;
3. Over 50 CUHK student trainers have been trained in courses in, for example, Journalism and Entrepreneurship, as well as events organized by CfE and the CU Library;
4. Participating students rated (5-point scales) highly the workshops;
5. More than 30 students from multiple disciplines trained to lead design thinking, creativity & data media boot camp.

Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices

1. Internal dissemination and sharing through VCCE Boot Camp, Library workshops, EPIN & COMM courses, other kinds of workshops and activities organized / co-organized by CfE.
2. External dissemination and sharing through EDB design & creativity thinking workshops, various boot camps, and academic classes.
   Students have enjoyed the learning and participated actively. This will diffuse the new maker and prototyping culture further in the future.