From March 29th to April 2nd, the Tech Driven Innovation course (TDX) from the Technical University of Applied Sciences Mannheim (TH Mannheim) visited CERN IdeaSquare and participated in their flagship learning activity, i2Planet. Students from five disciplines, as well as participants from the University of Tampere, formed an interdisciplinary group tasked with creating a “Better Earth” in 2050 on Planet Y. Divided into four sub-teams (Governance, Healthcare, Energy, Education), they worked together to build a functioning society for 10,000 individuals.
The i2Planet Learning Experience
The i2Planet activity is an intensive learning experience of the courses offered at CERN IdeaSquare in Geneva. It
forms a key part of our learning activities within the design principles of our tech-driven innovation courses. i2Planet helps students develop essential cognitive qualities:
– Supporting openness to alternative futures
– Managing uncertainty and complexity
– Self-organized transdisciplinary teamwork
It encourages out-of-the-box thinking and supports ideation beyond normal project constraints, thus fueling the diverging phase of our first diamond in the Tech-Push innovation process. Most importantly, this experience builds and nurtures team dynamics to carry throughout the rest of the course.
The Magic of IdeaSquare at CERN
The environment at IdeaSquare is truly special. It nourishes the concept of being a part of something bigger and working together. Away from the university setting, students feel more at ease, shifting from passive receivers of knowledge to active creators, with the pressure of performance and grades set aside for the week. The time at IdeaSquare also includes exciting excursions to CERN highlights like the Antimatter Factory and Synchrocyclotron. All in all, the week inspires students to collaborate and realize that it truly takes many minds and souls working together to create something great, like the Large Hadron Collider, all in pursuit of answering where it all started and why we as humans are here today.