PIEp

Venture Cup 3rd Prize

For ten years, business ideas have been raced against each other under the name of Venture Cup. In late April, this year's southern Swedish finals took place at the Grand Hotel in Lund. As usual, there were many Lund Researchers involved, including PIEp researcher Christina Skjöldebrand!

The company Visco, created by researchers at Lund University, who developed a tool to quickly and accurately measure GI (Gly chemical index) during food production, took third prize (worth 25 000 SEK). Malin Sjöö, Elin Östman and Christina Skjöldebrand were behind this venture.

Christina Skjöldebrand (left) with Malin Sjöö och Elin Östman vann tredje pris och 25.000 kronor

Winners (SEK 100,000) was Nocturnal Vision, borrowing principles from the world of biological insect to enable video cameras to enhance night vision. Team members: Henrik Malm, Magnus Oskarsson, Eric Warrant, Benjamin Page, Michael Hoy and Tomasz Gidzgier. In second place (50 000 SEK) came Zynk Time, led by John Heander and Ulf Jönsson, who constructed a simple system for mobile time reporting.

Runners up included another interesting LTH concept from John Farmer and Leif Bülow - Contra Cepti Gel, a new contraceptive which is cheap and also doubles as a lubricant.

Three prizes in the student category were also awarded. Nocturnal Vision won again there, followed by Kori designers MCdräkter & Desmo. The Venture Cup is backed by a long list of companies and institutions including, among others, LTH, Teknopol, VINNOVA, the Savings Finn and McKinsey & Company. Companies receive guidance and support during the year-long competitive process.

(Article: LTH Nytt, Nr1 2010, Text and photo: MATS NYGREN)

Find out more at http://www.venturecup.se/

22.07.2010. 13:19

PIEp Loves Innovation event ENG

PIEp Innovation

PIEp aims to increase the innovation power in Sweden and does it by developing people who create new innovative products and processes. During LOVE Stockholm 2010, PIEp participated fully in the KTH “Passion for Innovation” pavilion, a collaborative effort by the innovation organizations within KTH. PIEp managed an Open Innovation Team, which involved visitors in idea generation and problem solving, addressing some of the world's greatest challenges.

On 9th June, PIEp invited people to meet innovation inspirers and presentations that bore witness to the love of the power of innovation: Financier and entrepreneur (don’t know if this is the right word…should be as formal as possible) Carl Bennet, who strongly supports Swedish research, conversed with Professor Mats Magnusson about the love relationship between industry and universities. Anton Johansson (Twingly), Thomas Johansson (Electrolux) and Olof Hansson (Whitelines) testified to the way in which love for innovation, customer focus and seeing new opportunities creates success. Margareta Norell Bergendahl (KTH) presented innovations under the theme Innovation Against Poverty, and Donnie Lygonis (KTH Innovation) showed how to kick start ones own creativity.

Click here to see photos from the Passion for Innovation pavilion!

07.07.2010. 17:17

PIEp Researchers Network Meeting

On 10th June, PIEp organized an internal meeting of its research network. Researchers and graduate students met and exchanged experiences on the challenges of innovation to address issues in research. The aim was to create stronger research by supporting each other and create opportunities for cooperation.

PIEp based the meeting on the current theme of love: together we are stronger. PIEp Loves Innovation

06.07.2010. 12:37

PIEp Loves Innovation

Welcome to PIEp's Innovation Day!

PIEp believes in human and organizational innovation. We would like to invite you to the large pavilion on the wharf where KTH is hosting the theme of "Passion for Innovation" in connection with LOVE Stockholm 2010. We want to give you a day of inspiration, exciting encounters and show up Sweden as an innovation country! (See KTH: Passion for Innovation and CADtorget article)

Program 9 June, 15.00 - 18.30

During the day we will be presenting Sweden as a modern and innovative country for the future. Financier Carl Bennet, supporting Swedish research, will be in conversation with Professor Mats Magnusson about the love relationship between industry and universities. Anton Johansson from Twingly tells how love for innovation created an international company. Olof Hansson from the Swedish company Whitelines tells how they have revolutionized the ancient art of the paper industry. Donnie Lygonis from KTH Innovation lectures on how to kick start creativity and innovation in organizations. We will also have other exciting speakers on the program.

We present work from an Open Innovation Team set the task of developing the perfect wedding gift that solves one of the 10 global challenges. (Click here to read more We will also tell you about PIEp Innovation Against Poverty .

Mingle and party, 19.00 After the day's seminar program, you are invited to a PIEp mingle, where we offer food, wine and entertainment.

Welcome!
PIEp
RSVP by 4th June: piep@greatness.se

02.06.2010. 10:45

Spring Newsletter

Read our Spring Newsletter here!

11.05.2010. 12:25

CIG Creativity Day

On Thursday 8th April, the PIEp CIG "Cognitive Aspects of Innovation" hosted a one-day Creativity seminar, with a lecture and exercises aimed at realising creativity.

15 people took part in this first joint activity between PhD candidates from two national research schools, PIEp and Faculty D, with a common interest in innovation and creativity. Guest lecturer, researcher Peter Österberg, spoke about creativity from a psychological point of view, and participants discussed it in relation to their own research.

"Creativity is an inborn quality and humans are keen to discover new solutions to problems they encounter if the cultural setting allows them to. Creativity is the first step for every innovative process, and the prime tool for people with an entrepreneurial ambition," says Peter. (Click here for a copy of his presentation.)

The participants used the creativity exercises to generate proposals for activities to do together in the future, and talked about establishing a "House of creativity/innovation learning" as a common platform for experimental research and future collaboration between the two research schools.

Contact the CIG Coordinators Magnus Enerberg (magnus.eneberg@design.lth.se or Ernesto Gutierrez (egut@md.kth.se) for more information.

19.04.2010. 11:56

Cooperative Writing at DH/UmU

At the start of February, PIEp Director Sofia Ritzén and Susanne Nilsson, innovation manager for St. Jude Medical and a PIEp Industrial PhD student, travelled up to the Umeå Institute of Design to spend dedicated writing time with Monica Lindh Karlsson, senior lecturer and Catharina Henje, researcher and MA interaction designer.

They used the week to write papers (individually and together) by way of prototyping a cooperative method that they hope to stimulate elsewhere in the PIEp network. They described their work as flowing, productive and stimulating, and emphasized the significance of going away from your regular environment since that really helps you focus. They get new angles of approach from each other and are learning to use other methods for their process and work. All of them felt mutual trust and room to explore. The aspects they are talking about are the factors that create innovation possibilities. As a bonus they even had time to gain some insight into each others areas of research.

This is in parallel to the PIEp Journal Writing Journey - a series of workshops designed to both stimulate and support PIEp Researchers!

15.03.2010. 17:00

PIEp at Konkurrenskraft 2010

PIEp will be running a Radical Innovation Workshop at this year’s KonkurrensKraft on 22nd April!

A radical innovation is a product, service or process that is new to the whole organization and for the market and is often a prerequisite for long-term competitiveness. A critical factor is to assemble a team with a spectrum of competence and to get the team to co-produce.

In this interactive workshop, the participants learn how to systematically deal with radical innovation through teamwork by various methods. Concrete product examples are tested using various tools aimed at creating cooperation for both idea generation and idea development. The Radical Innovation Workshop is an approach developed within PIEp as part of our goal to increase the innovative capacity of people and organizations.

Konkurrenskraft 2010

15.03.2010. 15:41

Fuelling Innovation Through Research

On 17th February, Philip Fahlborg and Jonas Staaf, PIEp Master Thesis project students, presented their project to Sister Kenny's clinicians and guests from the University of Minnesota and City of Minneapolis. Their research used an innovation model based on "Clinical Innovation Team" from Katarina Lund’s "Innovation Handbook" (which was awarded the 2009 PIEp Best Master Thesis Award at KTH,). Philip and Jonas have applied the process in the development of "Flamingo", a new prototype of a unique balance training machine that patients can use at home for safe balance training. Philip and Jonas showed off their working prototype, and did a fantastic job which was very well received.

Contact Philip, Jonas or Lars Oddsson for more information!

23.02.2010. 18:17

New Method Measures Innovation Capability

It is not easy to know how innovative we are because it is often several years before it is possible to tell whether a product is successful or not. At LTH, a model has been developed to measure and improve the abstract phenomenon ‘innovation capability’. The model is called MINT, Measuring Innovation Capability in Teams.

"The idea is that the innovative team should formulate its goals itself with an improved innovation capability. We call this inspiration to measurement, because the great thing is that, once you have set the goals and chosen relevant factors, you can construct your own ways of measuring innovation capability", says Björn Regnell, professor in application systems at LTH, who is one of those who have developed the method as part of a PIEp project.

He describes the model as a compass: Where are we? Where do we want to be? How do we get there?

"MINT is about measuring and improving the innovation capability of an innovative team, which can be a specific innovation group in a company or a research team. So, it isn’t about the creativity of individuals or a country’s innovation systems", explains Björn Regnell.

He stresses the difference between innovation on the one hand and ideas and inventions on the other. Innovation realises the ideas and arises from the application and business use of the inventions.

Read Linda Viberg’s full article in the Lund University Magazine at: http://www.lu.se/o.o.i.s/22775 .

15.02.2010. 16:41

New Method for Malaria Diagnosis

Every year, a quarter of a billion people become infected with malaria. A million children die every year from the disease in Africa alone. The method being developed by the nuclear physicists in Lund is based on imaging with the help of multispectral light microscopy. The method is both inexpensive and modern, state the researchers.

“Spectral imaging belongs to basic research and at the same time is highly relevant to many problems in developing countries. This is a good combination”, says Sune Svanberg, adding that only a very small proportion of the research that is carried out today is directly relevant to developing countries.

Mikkel Brydegaard, one of Sune Svanberg’s doctoral students, thinks that this type of project can attract students to study physics. “This shows that even physicists can do something to help the Third World”, says Mikkel, a member of the PIEp Research School, whose project is also part of the PIEp IDRE program (Innovation Driven Research Education).

IDRE research student, Mikkel Brydegaard, LTH

Read Linda Viberg’s full article in the Lund University Magazine at: http://www.lu.se/o.o.i.s/22774

15.02.2010. 16:17

PIEp Newsletter (No.1)

Season's Greetings from all at PIEp!
PIEp Newsletter (No.1)

17.12.2009. 13:53

PIEp Master Thesis Student Presentations

6 PIEp Master Thesis students from KTH worked on extreme affordability projects in Namibia, South Africa this summer. They will present their work in room M37 at KTH on Friday 11th December 2009.

All three projects addressed the issue of energy needs:

9-10: Jannicke Burelius and Heléne Ernow – Needs Assessment
10-11 Stefan Voyce and Mats Kjellström – Sun Oven
13.30-14.30 Fredrik Berglund and Jonny Björklund – Off-grid Electricity

All are very welcome to attend.

You can also read their blog on the PIEp Student homepage.

Helen and Jannicke also gave a presentation at the PIEp Annual Event held at Scania on 24th November: Namibia students at the PIEp Annual Event 2009.

10.12.2009. 12:25

New Industrial Research Students

Three new research students joined PIEp in the Summer of 2009, all with industrial backgrounds, and all with a process perspective, seeking to increase innovation capability within organisations.

At LTH: Susanna Bill has left her post as Innovation Manager at Sony Ericsson to take up a career in research and consultancy.

At KTH: Susanne Nilsson, Innovation Manager for St Jude Medical, aims to gain an even deeper insight into enabling creative environments for product development.

At LTU: Johanna Wallin is an industrial research student at Volvo Aero, with the challenge of developing techniques for planning innovation in product service systems.

The three had a chance to meet and discuss common issues at the 2009 PIEp Annual Event, held at Scania in November.


PIEp Director Sofia Ritzen (left), Susanna Bill, Susanne Nilsson and Johanna Wallin (seated).

08.12.2009. 17:12

Vinit Parida wins Vattenfall Award

LTU research student Vinit Parida, Leader of the PIEp Research School International Relations and Open Innovation CIGs, has been awarded the Vattenfall Award for best licentiate thesis!
Vattenfall VD Gunnar Axheim, presenting the award, said:

"Vinit Parida in his licentiate thesis deals with how small technology-based companies achieve success through the use of various important skills. Vinit has with his work shown very good ability to handle different areas of scientific theory and methodology approaches and achieved interesting results for both research and practice. Against this background, we see Vinit as a very deserving recipient of the 2009 prize for best licentiate thesis."

Vinit Parida, Entrepreneur!
Open Innovation and International Relations CIG homepages.

08.12.2009. 14:16

PIEp Students meet at Stanford

Jonas Forsslund is making the most of the travel grant he won in the 2008 PIEp Master Thesis Competition! He has already visited Asia and Australia and is currently exploring the USA, from the east coast to the west coast. (You can follow his travels via his blog at: Jofo's World Tour)

Last week he dropped in to visit PIEp industrial research student Ingrid Kihlander, who is currently a visiting researcher at the Center for Design Research at Stanford. Together, they met with a number of researchers and companies to discuss product design and innovation issues.


Jonas and Ingrid in the beautiful Main Quad at Stanford University (29.9.09).

05.10.2009. 13:17

Teachers Network Workshop in Umeå

The PIEp Teachers Network met for a 2-day workshop at the Umeå Institute of Design on June 3rd-4th. The workshop gathered around 15 teachers from most of the PIEp partner universities in Sweden and was hosted by Monica Lindh-Karlsson and Catharina Henje at the Umeå Institute of Design.

During the workshop, the participants was actively engaged in a ‘sweatshop’ developed by the Institute with the purpose of increasing innovation capability. The attendees also participated in an annual event organized by the Umeå Institute of Design, including graduation ceremonies and thesis project presentations.

29.09.2009. 17:56

PIEp@ICED'09

The PIEp Research School held a Summer School at Stanford University at the end of August 2009, involving 14 PIEp PhD students from Sweden and 7 senior researchers.

A major highlight on the agenda was a visit at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (aka the d.school) guided by the director, Bernie Roth.

Other activities included:

Participation in a major international conference - the 17th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED’09) hosted by Stanford University and sponsored by the Design Society.
Visits to Silicon Valley companies such as Google and IDEO, as well as
seminars, workshops and activities at Stanford University, and
a guided tour of San Francisco and the Height-Ashbury area at the weekend!

During the ICED’09 conference, most of the summer school attendees presented research papers as either podium presentations or elevator pitch presentations. Members of the Research School also organized a larger networking event during the conference, involving students and researchers from the three PIEp International Partner universities - the Technical University of Münich, Cambridge University and the Center for Design Research at Stanford University - who were also taking part in ICED'09.

29.09.2009. 17:49

New Node Leaders

Two new PIEp Node Leaders attended a management meeting at KTH on 9th September!

"I am excited to be on board PIEp!" said Mikael. "As the Umeå node leader I will contribute to PIEp through a design-perspective on innovation processes. I am especially looking forward to work for interesting design projects and collaboration with industry in the area of interaction design, and contribute to our understanding of how innovation can be achieved through intense collaborations in multi-professional design teams."



Mikael Wiberg (left) will be taking over from Umeå's original Node Leader, Bengt Palmgren, later in the autumn. Glenn Johansson (right) is the new Node Leader for Jönköping.

27.09.2009. 13:05

New Chairman for PIEp Board

From 1st September 2009, PIEp has a new Board Chairman!

Hasse Johansson (Technical Director for Scania R&D) takes over from PIEp's original Chairman, Johan Tingsborg (Kisel Microelectronics AB) who continues to serve on the Board as an industrial member.



An interview with Hasse on his involvement with PIEp and his plans for the future will be posted here next month!

27.09.2009. 11:32

Innovation Handbook eng

The Sister Kenny Research Center "Innovation Handbook" developed by PIEp Masters Student Katarina Lund was presented at a Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce lunch in Minneapolis on Wednesday 10th June.

Katarina told us the story behind the Handbook!
Katarina Lund interview

17.07.2009. 14:32

Scania Managers receive PIEp Book

"The PIEp book Innovationsförmåga (in Swedish) captures the challenges of increasing creativity and innovation in a company in an excellent way. We have chosen to deliver the book to 300 managers for inspiration and learning."
says Hasse Johansson, Technical Director for Scania (March 2009)



(Order your copy of the book here!)

27.03.2009. 15:14

PIEp Master Thesis Presentations eng

Monday 23rd March 2009:

at 10am, Björn Herlin and Gabriel Gerges present their Master thesis work "What gets measured gets done - measuring and evaluating innovation at St Jude Medical AB"

at 2pm, Katarina Lund presents her "Innovation Handbook" - a result of Master thesis work undertaken at the Sister Kenny Research Institute in Minneapolis, and instrumental in their current establishment of a research environment.

Both presentations take place in room A425 at the Department of Machine Design, KTH (Brinellvägen 85, Stockholm).

18.03.2009. 14:00

The book: Innovationsförmåga

The book Innovationsförmåga, ‘Innovation Capability’ (currently only available in Swedish), is the culmination of a unique year long research project (IK2007). It offers visible and easily communicated results of a large research project which involved 27 companies and 26 senior researchers, and integrated the practitioner/researcher perspectives of innovation capability .

The study set out to address the following:

• * Organizational factors: the aim of the project was to identify organizational factors that affect the innovation capability of an organization;
• * Customer involvement: the aim of the project was to explore and understand in what ways, when and how customers are involved in innovation processes;
• * Process integration: the aim of the project was to explore and understand which organizational processes are integrated or involved in the innovation processes of organizations, and also between organizations;
• * Measurement of innovation capability: the aim of the project was to identify potential measures for the innovation capability of teams.

The book identifies the challenges experienced in innovation strategies (and processes, growth strategies, development strategies and processes, change management and assessments for innovation) and holds deployable recommendations for companies.

A pdf copy of Annika Olsson's launch presentation at the 2008 PIEp Annual Event is available here (in Swedish only).

Ordering:

To order your copy of the book, which costs 180 SEK (+ 32 SEK postage), please email Vicki Derbyshire at vicki@md.kth.se with your name and address (and organization number if the invoice is to be sent to your company).

Alternatively, you can send your order to us in writing care of Vicki Derbyshire, PIEp, Machine Design, Brinellvägen 83-85, 100 44 Stockholm.

We look forward to hearing from you!

01.02.2009. 01:11

An international evaluation committee will study PIEp

An international evaluation committee will study PIEp’s first year. “An evaluation is a way to see what we did well and what we can do better”, says Sofia Ritzén, PIEp’s programme director. It is an excellent opportunity to summarize the activities and project. The evaluation committee is comprised of Dr Erik Arnold, Technopolis (UK), Professor Per Stenius, Helsinki University of Technology (Finland), Professor David Williams, Loughborough University (UK), and Professor George Chryssolouris, University of Patras (Greece). Torbjörn Wingquist from VINNOVA is coordinator of the evaluation committee.

19.01.2009. 01:12

PIEp Foresight Workshop: 10th and 11th November 2008

PIEp had the pleasure of hosting the workshop "From Foresight to Design", at KTH on November 10th and 11th 2008. The workshop was led by Dr. William Cockayne and Tamara Carleton from the Center for Foresight and Innovation at Stanford University. PIEp sponsored several places on the Workshop for members of the Research Network.

19.01.2009. 00:50

Research can transform air into water!

A research team of engineering students have developed a machine that can extract drinking water from the surrounding air, even in environments with relatively low humidity. The technology was developed in a global team with strong PIEp-participation in the form of students from LTU, LTH and the KTH. Read more in the Metro article.


2 of the team present their work at the PIEp Annual Event 2008

19.01.2009. 00:49

Innovation Leadership Program

A year ago, a Masters thesis project was undertaken with Accenture, with the purpose of developing an Innovation Leadership Program. The first program is now being implemented and the participants are receiving training to increase their individual innovation capabilities. As part of the program a seminar took place at KTH in September involving researchers from PIEp and KTH students. The Masters thesis was conducted by Sanna Severinsson and Joonas Torvinen with Gunilla Ölundh Sandström as supervisor.

19.01.2009. 00:47

During Autumn 2008, 2 new PIEp projects get underway: InnoPlant and IDRE

-InnoPlant is a cooperation primarily between KTH, LTH, CTMH and three medical technology companies. New work processes and new products with a focus on user involvement will be investigated.

-IDRE stands for Innovation Driven Research Education. This project aims to create PhD projects which pursue both a technology scientific problem, and an identified business potential. PIEp is currently launching several IDRE-styled PhD projects in Medical technology. HiJ, LTH, CTMH and KTH are the key players in these projects.

19.01.2009. 00:43

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