Abstract:

As post-secondary institutions continue to profess themselves as cultivation hubs of “innovators” and “entrepreneurs”, they all struggle in blending three notable demographics: the innovator, the designer, and the entrepreneur. An innovation on its own is meaningless. An innovation has little value if it is not communicated properly to a wide audience. A well-presented innovation without business acumen is destined for failure. This event will bring together three groups, innovators, visualizers, and entrepreneurs, which rarely collaborate in the initial phases of a successful startup. This paper showcases an interdisciplinary hackathon event held by Canada’s largest Architectural Science program that brings student innovators, designers, and entrepreneurs together in a unique event where their respective ideas, business skills, and design representation abilities are focused towards the creation of a new product or service. Outlining five major phases for successful deployment, this paper presents both the synthesis of the event and supports the argument with student-generated examples taken from the hackathon.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship, applied learning, hackathon, innovation.