Innovation Starts From Vision and Business Models – (Certificate)

Contents

July 16 – July 20

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Apple, Yahoo, Google and Facebook were founded by college students. Could you be building the next star technology start-up? This course provides the basic knowledge and skills to help you answer this question. Among others, we will study how changes in technology paradigms give rise to novel opportunities (iPad, YouTube and Android for example); how to identify, analyse and exploit these opportunities (Netflix and iPod for example); how to design innovative products, to create a sustainable competitive edge (iPhone); how to transform loose topics on technologies, opportunities, customers, markets into unique strategic business plans; and how to transform these plans into focused execution while avoiding some common mistakes. It is a multimedia and interactive courseware package for multidisciplinary use exploring the central role of innovation in the dramatic growth of the prominent companies — from smart phones to search engines.

July 23 – July 27

Business Model Innovation

This is a fun-filled course that addresses the following questions: What is a business model? What features should a good business model possess? How can a given business model create aggressive competition within an industry? Can I design a successful business model? The course has three modules: Business Model Design, Competitive Forces, and Competing with Business Models. Business Model Innovation can be either “Closed”, “Open” or a mix of both. This course focuses on Open Business Model Innovation, the most effective strategies needed to compete in today’s changing landscape. Students work in groups of three with an assigned corporate executive and with a significant amount of guidance provided by the professor. This fun filled course brings out the creative energy and talent of your group’s collaborative efforts. The goal of the project is to come up with innovative solutions for a publicly traded company (Apple, Microsoft, Google etc.) that is in need of business innovation or a new sustainable business model to market its products. Utilizing some of the open innovation approaches taught in the class through a series of lectures and Harvard case studies, your group’s mission is to come up with an innovative solution to the problems facing the company or build a business model for your future business.

The leader for both of these courses is Alar Kolk, Vice-Rector for Innovation and Internationalisation at Tallinn University of Technology. Alar Kolk has previously worked as the General Secretary Adviser in the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Estonia. He has been active in Estonian R&D policy planning bodies: Innovation Policy Committee, Research Policy Committee and the Estonian R&D Strategy Committee. Alar has gained degrees from many different universities. Currently he is in the process of finalizing his Doctoral degree at Helsinki University of Technology.

July 30 – August 3

Agent-oriented Modelling for Designing Social Information Systems

We have recently seen remarkable advances in networked mobile “smart” devices, such as iPhones, Androids, and iPads. This multitude of mobile devices has opened new perspectives for social information systems where the overall solution is delivered through interactions between software applications running on many devices rather than by one centralized application running on a server. A well-known example of such peer-to-peer systems is Skype. You may be surprised to learn that much of the design of a social information system can be done without going into technical details related to the specific devices to be used. How to do it? As will be explained in the course, to design systems for the distribution world, we first need to conceptualise and model their complicated environment, where many parts, both social and technical, interact. As is often the case with designing complex systems, we first need proper concepts for creating such systems and secondly, appropriate simplifications – models – that are represented in terms of these concepts. The key concepts we use for this purpose are agents and socio-technical systems. In the course, the major models studied are goal, role, and domain models for problem domain analysis, and interaction, knowledge and behaviour models for design. The course will be illustrated by examples and exercises of intelligent lifestyle, such as smart home and office, and societal parking and grocery shopping. The course will also include a visit to the Skype development centre in Tallinn.

The course leader is Kuldar Taveter, Professor of Software Engineering at the Department of Informatics in Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. He developed his current research interests in 2005-2008, when he was employed at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Before that, from 1997-2005 he worked at the Technical Research Centre of Finland, which acts as a mediator between universities and industry. More recently, he spent January through August of this year at the University of South Carolina, USA, doing application-oriented research work in social information systems. Jointly with Professor Leon Sterling from Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, he has written a monograph “The Art of Agent-Oriented Modeling” by MIT Press, which can be used for designing social information systems and agent-based simulations.