Design thinking bootcamp with the American University of Kurdistan/ Duhok
Thursday dating March, 2nd, 2023.
Cihan University Research Center and nearly 100 Cihan University students attended a panel about the Design Thinking bootcamp that focuses on helping students to solve real problems with real solutions that then are going to be converted into business ideas that are being presented to investors. This bootcamp is being held in a collaboration between AUK, KII, UCLA and Lelav company.
The panel started with Mr. Raffi Simonian, the director of the design thinking bootcamp in UCLA. who was later joined by Dr. Dara Sherwani, the acting head of information science department in AUK, Dr. Randal Rhodes, the president of AUK, Dr. Azad Najar, Chief Medical and Innovation Officer, main owner and board Member at Scandinavien Real Heart AB, and Ms. Fatima Ahmed, the Founder and director of Lelav Tech. company in Duhok.
Mr. Simonian, who was born in Baghdad and partially studied his primary education in the city as well, is looking forward to give back to the Iraqi community which he feels that he’s connected to. He discussed how the current education system is not preparing students for the professional business market, and how the system is not talent-oriented which he explained as a combination of perishable skills and durable skills such as competencies and capabilities but more skill-oriented.
Points of discussion varied between all the panelists, some of the most important issues and topics that were discussed were.
First, the need for collaboration between industries and universities to teach more in demand jobs and skills that fulfill the market needs. Second, was the biggest obstacles that entrepreneurs within the region,one of the biggest points mentioned by Dr. Dara Sherwani was the legal side of registering businesses and copyright of intellectual property that presents a significant issue for young entrepreneurs that now face the threat of intellectual theft of their ideas that can be executed by an organization with available resources, also the lack of financial aid for young entrepreneurs is a big issue that hinders them.
Other topics included, Dr. Azad Najar discussing how the benefit of converting ideas to business is more potent than registering them as patents, since patent are mostly presented to majority of the public and does not serve the patent holder in the long-term. Another point was discussed by Ms. Fatima Ahmed, who pointed out that as an entrepreneur, waiting for the right time where you feel like your plan is perfect is never the way to go and will make you not achieve anything. It is better to create a clear plan and start executing while keeping in mind ways that you can solve problems as you go along the way.
At the end of the session, a link was provided for the application for students that have attended and applied for the form. Giving every students aware of this opportunity a chance to participate in the chance to get this extremely valuable opportunity that will be provided to only 21 students to attend a workshop at UCLA in Los Angeles, California for a period of two weeks from 16-31st of july, 2023.