School of Custom Innovations presented the results of their work on the 20th of November at NSU. During three weeks participants had been solving vital tasks for regional enterprises. The most inventive teams were awarded with money certificates.
The School of Custom Innovations was held for the first time, but it has already got the annual status. The main task was to bring together business, with its necessities, students and postgraduates from different Siberian universities.
The School was functiong from 2 to 20 November. Organizers of the event were NSU Innovation Development Center, Scientific and Production Center TechnoFIT, “Metaver” project group and Novosibirsk City Center for Project Activity. Their main goal was to show participants an opportunity to solve problems of real people, gaining commercial profit and international fame. This actually means to give the participants not academic knowledge but practical skills that are highly demanded in business.
Participants were required to develop a solution to specific practical problems, given by Novosibirsk and other cities’ enterprises. “These were not simply actual tasks, but possible ideas for future business,” - said one of the organizers.
Overall there were twenty tasks stated by regional and federal companies. Among the tasks were the following: to develop a method of multiphase flow tomographic analysis, develop new inertialless heater for laboratory gas vortex bioreactors; to upgrade existing drying chamber for protective clothing and shoes; to create system of visual control in bioreactors without observation ports and many other problems of production optimization.
The School had two stages. During the extramural training participants were to choose a task and form a team, then during projecting session they got acquainted with appropriate methods for solving their tasks (Goldratt theory, Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). Resulting this stage, participants shaped the decision as the requirements specification for research and development.
Participants with the most interesting solutions were invited to the second stage to defend their projects in front of experts.
There were 315 School participants with teams from Moscow State University, Krasnoyarsk State Agricultural University, Novosibirsk Aviation Technical College, Novosibirsk Academy of Water Transport, Novosibirsk State Agricultural University, Novosibirsk State Technical University, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Siberian State Academy of Geodesy, Siberian Transport University and Siberian University of Customer Cooperation.
Most applications were received from NSU. Finally only eighty participants (twenty-three teams) managed to get in the second stage of the program. Sixty problem solutions were submitted at the final presentation.
“Bright ideas - that is what we wanted to get from the event. We certainly didn't expect you to give us serious scientific developments ready for implementation. But it is important that you have already started to think of it,” - addressed to the participants one of the experts during the closing ceremony.
In addition to money rewards participants have an opportunity to become a resident of Akadempark business incubator with a project on custom innovations. And there is a chance to continue cooperation with customer. For example, “Aton-spetsodezhda” company is planning collaboration with Kozlov-Rudakov's team in the field of improving drying cabinets and rooms, and with Makarov's team to develop new ways of danger zones labeling.
Vadim Poluga, the School co-organizer, says: “The School of Custom Innovations has no precedents. It is the beginning of a big process for high-quality engineer training. We are to train engineers who will be able to successfully present themselves in international market. In this sense, NSU is the main supplier of new ideas. We prove our words in actions.”
