Design-Thinking in Communication: ITMO Workshops Started at IKBFU

On the 2^nd of November, two design sessions on engineering and communications were held IKBFU students as a part of the federal project "Platform for University Technological Entrepreneurship" (organized by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science). More than 120 students from different courses and areas of study gathered in the new studios of the University’s StudHouse to offer their entrepreneurial ideas, get an expert assessment and improve their soft skills. Teachers, psychologists, IT experts, and business consultants from ITMO University acted as mentors.

At the design thinking workshop students learned how to conduct problematic interviews, determine the needs of potential consumers, went through all stages of work on the project from empathy and focus to idea generation and selection, prototyping and testing.

Inna Toporova, expert, speaker and trainer of hackathons, developer of methodical technologies for business in T&D TECHNOLOGIES; T&D-developer in IT-company "Innotech":
Our trainings are not 'talking head' style; we have a fun and smart way of doing things. People learn in a game format new competencies that will be useful in any job. We did our own research with major employers. Almost all say that soft skills play a key role in the career prospects of employees today. It is easy to teach professional skills, hard skills, but if a person is in a conflict, it is extremely difficult to be in the same team with them.

Inna Toporova, expert, speaker and trainer of hackathons, developer of methodical technologies for business in T&D TECHNOLOGIES; T&D-developer in IT-company "Innotech":

Our trainings are not 'talking head' style; we have a fun and smart way of doing things. People learn in a game format new competencies that will be useful in any job. We did our own research with major employers. Almost all say that soft skills play a key role in the career prospects of employees today. It is easy to teach professional skills, hard skills, but if a person is in a conflict, it is extremely difficult to be in the same team with them.

Students learned how to communicate with potential clients, prepare presentations for investors and negotiate at the training from leading ITMO experts Svetlana Skakun and Elena Bondar.

Svetlana Skakun, professor of Soft Skills couse at ITMO, manager of training and personnel development projects at the Bank of Russia:
Our training is geared towards business. We share experience and knowledge in which, in the case of a startup idea, students can successfully highlight their target audience, convince them of the quality and importance of their product, and find investors and like-minded people. There are many components here: speech, presentation of themselves and the project itself. Many guys are already working or developing their own social networks today. We give them real tools that you can try now.

Svetlana Skakun, professor of Soft Skills couse at ITMO, manager of training and personnel development projects at the Bank of Russia:

Our training is geared towards business. We share experience and knowledge in which, in the case of a startup idea, students can successfully highlight their target audience, convince them of the quality and importance of their product, and find investors and like-minded people. There are many components here: speech, presentation of themselves and the project itself. Many guys are already working or developing their own social networks today. We give them real tools that you can try now.

Note: three more trainings will be held in November for the students of Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.

November 9: "Creativity in Business: from Idea Generation to Development and Implementation" is aimed at the development of entrepreneurial thinking, personal and team creativity.

November 9: "Team Development" is aimed at improving the ability to work effectively in a team, to form it and maintain its sustainable functioning.

November 12: "Co-creation: training of creative teams" is aimed at developing team creativity and ability to work on technological projects.

At the end of the workshop series, students are invited to take an exit test to test their knowledge in the field of techpreneurship and receive a certificate of participation in the training.