Right...a way to crunch a business model from good research ideas
Here's an interesting innovation move, one to be applauded.
It's
Startup Weekend Science and Research
, in Wellington at Creative HQ from FridayJuly 3 to Sunday 5.
Interesting because its the first time a non-digital (as such) Startup Weekend event's been donein NZ (France has beaten us to the draw). Most startup weekends like this are around apps orweb-based functions – something that requires developers and designers.
This 54-hour marathon though has tangible products, something physical you can touch as the startpoint. It is open to all research-based ideas (the criteria for this is at the end of the blog).
SWRsch is to be applauded because it is:
- Delving into the unknown - the organisers aren't quite sure how many people willattend
- Likely to lever off some of our country's other strengths, be they ourbiological, manufacturing or other service industry areas of expertise
- (People stillhave to eat, move, experience, live and play in the real, physical world. Solving problems in theseareas is just as important as in the online space)
It is also a good intiativebecause it potentially combines the ethos of startup weekends: speed to market, pace of (software)development, minimum viable product and the like; with what will often be a protectable intellectualproperty position from the research.
Finally, it could be quite exciting to seeteams looking to develop deep technology on the Friday night, and frantically looking for someonesuch as a chemist or electrical engineer or food technologist, rather than desperately trying tofind a coder/programmer.
The organisers are really wanting to attact PhD students– people with ideas, people who don't necessarily want an academic/researcher role in their nextcareer phase – to be part of the weekend.
To state the obvious, getting them along, en mass as a way of acquiring a range of skills overand above what they've learned doing their doctorate, is going to be the trick.
Here's what the weekend organisers are looking for.
What is a research-based idea?
- To be a good fit for #SWRsch your idea should meet (or come close to) the followingcriteria:
- It will be based on a defined body of research e.g. a masters/doctorateproject, market research, socio-economic research, data project, etc
- It will requirea degree of research and development to be a marketable product i.e. it is not already at theproduct stage (you may or may not have done a portion of this R&D already)
- Itwill not have been widely commercialised yet i.e. you may have explored one market but think thereis more potential to be realised yet
Right...a way to crunch a business model from good research ideas
Right...a way to crunch a business model from good research ideas
