Develop Innovative Solutions for Challenges of your Organisation

During the Innovation Challenge a challenge will be tackled in one or two days by a group of students, employees and / or customers. They will not just generate ideas for new products and / or business models in line with the challenge, but also develop, test and pitch these new propositions. ECE facilitates and stimulates the generation and execution of new, promising ideas by the participants.

Key benefits

Inspiration

Get inspired by the different perspectives on your existing challenges

Knowledge

Designed according to the latest insights and methodologies around innovation and startups from both academia and practice

Pressure cooker

Develop in a short time promising and innovative ideas and propositions

The Innovation Challenge

The participants will go through a combination of mini-masterclasses, workshops and exercises next to the time they spent further developing their idea. The Innovation Challenge consists of the four phases: Ideation, Problem, Solution and Pitching.

Through this programme participants will learn more about the importance and possibilities of the introduced challenge as well as practice the skills needed to turn an idea into reality. The list of topics for this event include among others: ideation, value proposition, customer interviewing, validation, (rapid) prototyping and pitching.

It will be a dynamical and interactive pressure cooker in one or two days. The exercises will be client focused during which you focus on the pains and gains of the clients, that will be the starting point for the participants to develop their ideas. In the end the participants pitch their ideas and the best idea(s) will be selected by a jury.

Who can participate?

The challenge could have multiple forms with different participants. Participants can come from within your own organisation, but also from outside of your organisation for a variety of perspectives. Depending on your expectations, the challenge can have from 10 till 200 participants. Possible participants are for example:

(All) employees of your own organisation
Senior Management / Top Management Team
Partners you work with
Clients
Students of different universities

Experiences from Previous Challenges

CNV

CNV is a national trade union in the Netherlands. Their challenge is that they lose members because of the aging of the population and they have difficulties to attract new members. The goal of the Innovation Challenge at CNV was to develop entrepreneurial competences within the employees whereupon they are capable to see opportunities and are flexible to act upon it.

The Innovation Challenge at CNV took place in one day with 220 employees in 42 teams. They generated promising ideas and propositions in line with the vision, goals and challenges of the organisation. In the end 3 teams were selected to develop and test their ideas in the market.

APM TERMINALS

APM Terminals is one of the largest container terminals in Europe and is situated in Rotterdam. They teamed up with ECE for an exciting Innovation Challenge with students of the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

The challenge of APM Terminals was to reach the next level of Super Quay Cranes for the terminal of the future resulting in higher productivity, less failures, fully automated, lower energy consumption and reduction of operational costs. At the end of the challenge the students pitched their ideas and propositions to the board of APM Terminals.

Innovation Challenge with Student Teams

The Innovation Challenges with student teams are organised in cooperation with ECE Students. ECE Students is a student association that focuses on building an entrepreneurial spirit at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. They organize events and competitions aimed to inspire, coach and help students in making their ideas a reality. ECE Students partners for Innovation Challenges with other student associations in Rotterdam, YES!Delft Students, DutchCE Students and Erasmus Enterprise.

Your Potential Facilitators

Our team combines academic excellence with practical experience. We translate the latest academic advances into tangible insights. Just as important, all our team members have extensive experience in working with and facilitating both large and small groups.