University of Notre Dame IDEA Center Innovation Rally Features SAP

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On Friday October 12^th, SAP’s Andrea Anderson, Vice President - Design Thinking was the featured speaker at the University of Notre Dame IDEA Center’s Innovation Rally. Over 150 people attended to hear Andrea share her thoughts about Design Mindsets and how they support both the entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial innovation process. The Innovation Rally features innovative speakers, networking and an interactive showcase of emerging and cutting-edge Notre Dame startups and technologies. Judging by the lively question period and line of people who wanted to talk with Andrea, it was a tremendously successful event.

The talk was titled Critical Design Mindsets for Entrepreneurs and was described as follows:

• SAP and a group of thought leaders from large organizations implementing design-minded innovation have created a description of the missing “mindsets” that have driven design culture at scale. Mindsets are the essential but tacit drivers of success in design-led innovation teams. Deliberately hiring new talent while also considering mindsets can create diverse teams faster. Empowering existing talent to leverage design mindsets is essential to drive innovation. In this keynote, Andrea Anderson, vice president of design thinking at SAP Design, will share what these mindsets are, why they matter, what design thinking and design innovation are, and how to develop your team to fully exhibit these characteristics.

This event served as a kickoff for the recently announced SAP Next-Gen Chapter for Design Innovation at Notre Dame. The plan for the chapter includes several more activities including the recently completed University of Notre Dame MBA Interterm Design Challenge, design innovation boot camps for students/industry, and new curriculum for the SAP Next-Gen community. Our goal is to collaborate with Notre Dame, the IDEA Center and its excellent faculty to scale design innovation capabilities across our university and business ecosystems.

Standing for Innovation, De-Risking and Enterprise Acceleration, the IDEA Center is the fundamental resource for all commercialization and entrepreneurial activities at the University of Notre Dame. It provides the necessary space, services and expertise for idea development, commercialization, business formation, prototyping, entrepreneurial education and student entrepreneurial efforts. It is designed to bring the best Notre Dame faculty, staff and student ideas and innovations to market.

The IDEA Center is dedicated to expanding the technological and societal impact of the University’s innovations. It does this by nurturing and facilitating the movement of the best ideas of faculty, staff, and students from discovery to commercial application. The Center provides the necessary space, services, and expertise for idea development, commercialization, business formation, prototyping, entrepreneurial education, and student entrepreneurial efforts.