ACCELERATING INNOVATION! THE POWER OF A DIVERSE CROWD
In our experience, diversity always brings the richest innovation outputs. And the CEMEX Hackathon was no exception! We collaborated with 4 key teams to ensure a successful event:
1) The CEMEX team, who believed in this event, and together we created a common vision to solve their challenge. In their first Hackathon, this team had a dream and followed the LAA’s methodology to obtain the anticipated outcomes!
2) Graduate students from nine universities in the UK and Switzerland: University of Cambridge, Cranfield University, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), ETH Zurich, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Imperial College London, University of Manchester, and University of East Anglia.
3) Facilitators are also key to being successful. In this Hackathon, we relied on Design Thinking experts from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Cranfield University, the London School of Economics (LSE), the University of Cambridge and the Lean Analytics Association (LAA), who kept the energy high and the process flowing. Keeping the teams focused, engaging all participants to gradually provide out-of- the-box ideas, and helping them unleash their creativity with prototyping techniques in such a short time, through a sped-up failing and learning process, is not an easy task!
4) Visual Communication experts. We relied on the Starfish Taylor team, with whom we have an strategic partnership, to enable participating teams to bring ideas and prototypes to life, while ensuring engagement and connection with the audience by conveying the right story!
