Translating Tech Education into Innovation-Driven Careers

Răzvan Rughiniș

Innovation: Why?

• Innovation as disruption• Increasing asymmetries of control

• Increasing asymmetries of information

• Innovation as construction• Trust

Trust

• Seeing the future• Careers of growth

• Seeing people• Face-to-face mentorship and peer

support

• Stable ecosystems• Universities as centers of gravity

How?

• Create local IP

• Re-imagine technical careers• Hyper-fast skill erosion• Fragmentation• Automation

• Bridge leaks in enrollment pipelines• Students & Faculty

• Attract passionate people• Attract diverse people

• Re-balance Universities

Re-imagine technical careers

• Focus: product design

• Amplifiers for tech competence

• Empathy & user experience

• Awareness of the ecosystem

• Diverse vocabularies

• Entrepreneurship

• Business

• Multi-disciplinary

Bridge leaks

• Gender: STEM vs. humanistic high schools

• Early employment vs. experimentation & growth

• Strategic corporate engagement

• Mentorship & models

Re-balance Universities

• Threat: Uberization of education• Loss of viral campus environments

• Loss of mentorship

• Opportunity: Innovation ecosystems• Fine-tuned involvement of corporations

• Channels of passionate & self-driven work• Laboratories, summer schools, contests

• Robotics, cybersecurity, AI, networking

• Innovation Labs

University-anchored, national accelerator

program for early-stage, tech-innovation

based start-ups that empowers students and young

graduates from tech & IT Universities to make their vision

real, completing a journey from creative ideas to user-

focused prototypes and products.

Intro

The evolution of

Grid Watcher:now incorporated as an Eximprod Grup’sSolution

OrangeFab Romania: 5 out of the 10 start-ups are InnovationLabsalumni

CredXP (with BRD)

IL 2018 alumni soon to lunch

Tag4IT (with BRD)

UPB students and faculty

Tech startups

created by

Success stories

ENTy

Pentest-tools

CODA Intelligence

Fullscreendigital

Wyliodrin

Appsulate

VisageCloud

Success stories

UPB students and faculty

Tech startups

created by

The building blocks of

The building blocks of

The building blocks of

2019

CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT

PROTOTYPEDEVELOPMENT

TESTING (WITH CLIENTS)

MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT

WHAT PARTICIPANTS DO SUPPORT WE OFFER

ACCESS TO TEHNOLOGIES

ACCESS TO CUSTOMERS

UNIVERSITY SUPPORTMENTORSHIP

MEDIA EXPOSURE

ACCESS TO DECISION MAKERS IN COMPANIES

SELECT SCHOLARSHIPS

TARGETED FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Program overview