Dr. Simon Pulman-Jones, a regular i-Teams mentor and lecturer for our Design Thinking workshop, presented a paper on i-Teams together with Amy Weatherup at the EPIC 2019 conference in Providence, Rhode Island.
The paper, From ‘Cool Science’ to Changing the World: the Opportunity to Support Pre-startup Science Commercialisation Through Ethnography and Human-Centred Design (authors: Dr. Simon Pulman-Jones, Emergence Now & Amy Weatherup, AJM Enterprises) uses i-Teams as an example of how human-centred design practitioners can engage with the university science commercialisation process at a pre-startup stage. It describes the innovation journey of science-innovators from a starting point of “cool science” to an understanding of how science can be applied to solve real-world problems and create impact. It also describes the i-Teams journey, again starting from an enchantment with “cool science”, then mapping out how teams cross the threshold of the university environment to engage with external experts, competitive landscapes and the needs of end users.
The full conference proceedings, together with video footage of the conference, are available on the EPIC website. The paper is also available for download from the i-Teams website.