By Adriana Fu*
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the need for creativity and resilience for the world. In a short space of time, our society had to adapt to abrupt changes in habits and routines that are so ingrained in the population's daily lives, such as going to the market in the late afternoon!
In this context, one word gained strength: innovation! How to implement remote teaching, if so many Brazilians do not have access to the internet? How to control food waste in times of scarcity? How to protect the health of those who cannot work from home?
Companies, educational institutions, media outlets and sports teams have continually invested in promoting alternative solutions and social entrepreneurship, aiming to answer practical questions that are so present in our new reality.
With this in mind, the new Patronos Patrimonial Fund notice was born: the first Innovation Journey, which will bring together brilliant minds in an interdisciplinary environment to generate solutions to real problems in our socioeconomic context.
Patronos believes that everyone can be agents of transformation, in addition, Unicamp is an environment conducive to innovation, as it currently includes students from more than 60 courses in the three major areas of knowledge.
What will the first Innovation Day be like?
The notice will select 40 students from Unicamp to form 8 groups. These teams will be offered entrepreneurial qualifications with their own multidisciplinary methodologies, organizing workshops from exploring the key problem to putting together a business plan.
"We, at Patronos, believe in the transformative power that education has in society, which is why our priority in 2022 is to further reinforce incentives and entrepreneurial training in the university environment at Unicamp to add to the excellence of academic teaching that is already part of", says Alexandre Almeida, responsible for creating and managing the Notice.
During the Innovation Journey, groups will receive individual and collective mentoring to devise solutions to imminent problems in society with a focus on four of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: (2) Zero Hunger and Sustainable Agriculture; (4) Quality education; (6) Drinking Water; and (10) Reduction of inequalities.
In the second phase of the project, Incubation, students will go through the deeper development of the idea, following the creation journey to bring the idea closer to reality and help students take their first steps as social entrepreneurs!
At the end of the project, at least two of the best and most creative solutions will be awarded a financial contribution of at least 2 thousand reais, aimed at getting the group's idea off the ground. The Innovation Journey's proposal is to embrace different veins of university knowledge and foster Unicamp's innovative vocation; Check out more details about the project.
Innovation Journey: The first steps towards entrepreneurship
The notice opens for registration now, on January 24th, through the website Patronos.org/Jornada. The selected registrants will join interdisciplinary groups of five participants who, starting in March, will participate in training and mentoring workshops for almost 3 months on the following themes: introduction and exploration of the problem, definition of users and actors of interest, ideation and solution, construction prototype and validation, detailing and planning and, finally, pitch preparation.
All this preparation will culminate in the highlight of the project: the Solutions Fair! On June 05th, the teams will present their solutions to an evaluation panel, of which at least two will receive financial support to proceed to the incubation phase! The event will be online and broadcast live on the Youtube Patrons!
Adriana Fu is Director of Institutional Relations
I Innovation Day Patrons
Registration from 24/1 to 20/2
www.patronos.org/Jornada
Access the original content on the Patronos Patrimonial Fund Association website
