On the afternoon of March 1st, Tongji Innovation& Venture Program Kickoff Event was held at Sino-Finnish Centre. Prof. Lei Xinghui, Vice Dean of Graduate School, Prof. Lou Yongqi, Dean of Design & Innovation College, Executive Vice Director of Sino-Finnish Centre, Mr. Richard XU, SFC Innovative supervisor, Chief Curator of Tedx Shanghai, Mr. DA Yan, Creative Director of CrystalCG attended the event with 31 students, Prof. Timo Nyberg of Aalto University also met all the participants via Skype in Finland.
TJIV is co-initiated by SFC and College of Design and Innovation, open to all students of Tongji University and Aalto University. This semester TJIV offers 4 compulsory courses for 38 students enrolled in this program, 10 undergraduates, 27 graduates and 1doctor included.
TJIV is featured with three characters: courses are open to all Tongji students except for students enrolled in TJIV, course time is flexible according to different projects’ process, and we also offer multi-evaluation methods to promote students’ learning.
In the beginning of the kickoff event, SFC staff and students who participated in SFC activities explained with their own experience the ten key words concerning the TJIV on the screen, which are interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, multi stakeholders, PBL(Passion/ Project/ Problem/ Person/ Play Based Learning), inclusive mind, etc. More over, Richard came up with two new words for TJIV: power of clarity and dream team. These words are not only key words of TJIV, but also the microcosm of the hard work of Sino-Finnish Centre for the past three years. As an international exchange platform jointly established by Tongji University and Aalto University, Sino-Finnish Centre has been committed to provide students with a communication platform that is cross cultural as well as interdisciplinary. Sino-Finnish Centre provides the students with a platform closer to society by promoting the cooperation between students and scholars as well as enterprises. Sino-Finnish Centre also creates a more relax and freer platform for creative ideas, innovation and starting new business through the provision of rich and colorful lectures and courses. In Sino-Finnish Centre, we encourage interdisciplinary cooperation, inclusive thinking, and stimulate the whimsical creative ideas and unconstrained innovation. We also prefer the surefooted work and exploration deep into the very essence. Sino-Finnish Centre not only puts practice into the inclusive, diverse and innovative education dream, it also helps more and more people realize their dreams.
After simple warm-up games, students participating in the TJIV became familiar with each other quickly. The students and the guiding teachers coming from Sino-Finnish Centre were divided into five groups. They started the workshop respectively on the following five topics: urban transportation, urban agriculture, aging society, air quality and food safety. They gave their solutions for the topics in less than two hours. In the part of group show, five groups gave their opinions on their own topics or product prototype in the form of role plays or story-telling. Although for most students, this is the first time they involved in the cross major and interdisciplinary teamwork, the influence of this form of education on the stimulation of the students’ inspiration and presentation modes is evident.
After the group presentation, Prof. Lei Xinghui, the Executive Vice President of the Graduate School, addressed on behalf of Tongji University. He said Tongji University needed such an international platform to help the students cultivate their innovative consciousness while exerting their manipulative ability. It can also help the students think out of the original thinking frame. Prof. Timo Nyberg of Aalto University showed his welcome to the students via Skype. He praised their group show, and introduced relative innovation programs in Aalto University. He also hoped that the students could exchange to Alto University in the future. Prof. Lou Yongqi, Dean of the Design and Innovation College, Executive Vice Director of Sino-Finnish Centre, did the summary statement. He thought that the many challenges in reality couldn’t be solved alone by people from a special field and we need people from different areas to cooperate. Prof. Lou said this was an opportunity to change ourselves, and it was also a way to change the world. Sino-Finnish Centre would always provide people with more and richer opportunities, broader platform to break and step over the boundaries, and create a better future with more possibilities.
