This course has been developed and is offered as cooperation between Copenhagen Business School, Lund University, Øresund Entrepreneurship Academy and Marketing Consulting Services. It is inspired by current important topics like the democratization of innovation, microfinance, improving the living standard of the bottom of the pyramid, the development of new energy sources and developing business ideas out of online and/or distributed communities. This course teaches students how to find, evaluate and develop innovative ideas for the benefit of individuals, companies and the society (resulting in social innovations).

In this course students get to learn the models and tools taken from theory on sustainability and corporate social responsibility, innovation management and entrepreneurship literature. For instance, we take a look at new search techniques to identify valuable individuals and their ideas for companies (as for instance the Procter and Gamble “connect and develop” model), we look at new business models (e.g. platform leadership) as Apple or LEGO apply it, we look at new ways of financing entrepreneurial individuals (e.g. microfinance MyC4), and learn how to co-create innovations with distributed actors inside and outside of organizations. Based on these cases, students develop and adapt their own innovative tools/models or work on their own cases. Students take part in an “social innovation camp” where they learn to reflect and apply theories and models.

The relevance of this course results from a common dilemma in industries that depend on the generation of social innovations. There is a high number of ideas to be identified and evaluated. From the mass of ideas only few will survive to become ready solutions. We meet this challenge and search for ideas, evaluate them and select the most promising ones.

Once we have experienced the essential tools and methods to identify and evaluate new ideas and tools in class there are three different options that students have (depending on the availability of partner companies for the course):

To 1) develop innovative, sustainable tools that companies can apply, to 2) work on hypothetical or real cases that the students bring into the course and 3) to work on real projects from partner companies.

We test the abilities during the highlight of the course: the Social Innovation Camp. Student teams, course coordinators and potential company partners meet for 8 hours to discuss the developed tools and cases or to further develop innovative solutions.

The type of exam used in this course (individual project exam/home assignment) allows the students to follow the development of the course in writing in their projects and to reflect on their experiences over the whole duration of the course, including the innovation camp and the co-creation of real solutions for real companies.

Structure:

The course follows the structure outlined in the figure, having 3 different parts:

In the first part (Inspire) the students attend the theoretical lectures. This section comprises theory and cases about sustainability and corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurial opportunities, idea development, idea evaluation and aspects of a business proposal. This part is finalized and summarized by a lecture focusing on tools in which the students learn how to apply the theory for a real case. In the second part, the students work either on developing an innovative, sustainable tool based on literature (e.g. a kind of microfinace model or a distributed innovation model), or chose a company to work with by themselves or work with a partner company chosen by the course leaders. In the third part students, company managers and industry experts join together to develop solutions for sustainable innovations for the cases at the instant innovation camp. The students present their work at the camp. While they are assisted on how to facilitate such a workshop, it is their own responsibility to bring together the requirements (presentation and workshop material) in order to present their work as good and as professional as possible.

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