The CBI Fusion Point (CBI-FP) is one of the ten Student Programs under the ATTRACT umbrella which focuses on real-life societal challenges based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and uses a methodology from the Design Thinking, Challenge-Driven education, and Experiential learning.
This program is aimed at students from Esade, IED, and UPC, who collaborate with researchers from the R&D&I projects, exploring their technologies and using them as solutions for the challenges they have to solve.
Discover more about CBI-FP through this interview with a teacher and a student that participated in the first round of this program:
Ian Collingwood
Academic lead for the Challenge Based Innovation (CBI-FP) based in Esade.
Which university and courses are part of your consortium and what brings you all together?
The consortium is made up of Esade, UPC and IED, and then of course we have CERN and the ATTRACT technologies. I think what brings us together is our love of trying to explore new ways of helping students to learn, new ways to explore technology, to explore design, to come up with new businesses and new innovations.
How do you think society will benefit from this project?
The important thing about CBI is that it’s fundamentally human-centred. So, it’s about matching the needs of real people with the cutting-edge technologies that we are working with. And that’s something that I think has been sorely lacking in the past: engaging with communities, engaging with people, and then matching the technologies in a way that can change lives and hopefully save the world.
How do you envision participating in this project will contribute to your personal and professional development?
It has allowed me to connect with some of the smartest people I have ever met, particularly around the fields of technology transfer, moving discoveries from the lab into the real world. And that is a vast field that I intend to dig into much further in the future.
Ariadna Llovet
Engineering student at UPC.
How do you find working with the R&D&I projects?
I found it quite challenging because I wasn’t used to this kind of work. But now I like it very much and I have learned lots of new things and I’m thrilled to work with these people.
How do you think society will benefit from this project?
I believe that society will benefit from it, maybe in an indirect way because only the fact that we are able to talk with NGOs and give them our idea will give them the means to develop this idea and help the people.
How do you envision participating in this project will contribute to your personal and professional development?
In the professional field, I think it will help me the fact that I have been working in a multidisciplinary team, and also the fact that I’ve learned lots of new skills related to exponential thinking or innovation. In my personal career, I think that it will help me a lot because now I take into consideration the social impact that my projects may have, both related to the fact that I might help someone or hurt someone, or not only thinking about making money.
For more information
Visit the CBI-FP program site.
