Entrepreneurship and AI talents to collaborate to develop ideas

NTNU's School of Entrepreneurship (NSE) and NorwAI announce a collaboration between Master and PhD students from NSE and NorwAI. This new collaboration aims to foster collaborative knowledge exchange, enabling earlier identification of opportunities for commercialization of the research emerging from NorwAI’s research labs into new businesses developed by NSE students.

Two of the most popular educational offerings at NTNU join hands to further stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation. 

The concept was tested last year when NorwAI PhD student Yujie Xing joined a team of entrepreneur students to conduct a feasibility study. The study was an intensive introduction over a six-week period to think and rethink the steps that would take an idea to market readiness. Yujie Xing guided the entrepreneurs in integrating artificial intelligence to their feasibility study.

Now the NSE want to follow up on the test on a larger scale: 

-This autumn our 5th year master students will meet with NorwAI’s 4th master students or PhDs as a part of their feasibility study. The mix is not mandatory, but optional. We want to build a platform where ideas can meet, says Assistant Professor Ingrid Berg Sivertsen at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management. 

The collaboration between the two departments, which belongs to two different faculties, is not a coincidence. The connecting link between the two is Associate Professor Nhien Nguyen of the prestigious Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management. She is also in charge of NorwAI’s work package of AI Innovation Ecosystem (INNOECO) where she facilitates the sharing of research findings, business solutions, and change models within the AI domain among AI partners.

    
-This collaboration is important for two key reasons. Firstly, it is crucial that we always keep in mind the potential applications of the exciting technologies coming forward from NorwAI’s research. Secondly, and more importantly, we must never forget the importance of human collaboration in this digital age. The businesses of the future will emerge from debates around real world problems and solutions, and the relationships we are building between NSE and NorwAI today provide an essential foundation for that dialogue to start”, says Nhien Nguyen. 

The new program will widen the pool of ideas and talents to explore AI and support the student’s mindset towards innovations and entrepreneurship. 

-    In what way is this program unique, Ingrid Berg Sivertsen?

 
- NTNU’s School of Entrepreneurship has a record of 20 years’ experience in business developments. Our results are pointing upwards with hundreds of people employed in companies started by our students. NSE has been coopertingwith CERN in Switzerland to introduce cutting edge technology. Although valuable, the distance between our counties has been a challenge. Now, we can knock on a door next door only 10 minutes walking distance from each other’s facilities. That is truly unique in Norway, she says. 

-    What is the next step in this process? 

-The two parties have agreed on this endeavor. We both must detail our plans and do the necessary paperwork to integrate our idea into our educational programs. We plan to start our joined efforts the coming fall in a very low-key manner; simply invite students from the NSE and NorwAI to a “pizza-come-together” meeting where the students can get to know each other and exchange ideas. Then the success of projects will tell us how to continue and how to improve the program further. Our staff is following the students very intensively in the feasibility studies. This gives us the opportunity to get to know both the favors and the obstacles we will meet, Ingrid  Berg Sivertsen says.  

-We have some other ideas to expand the program, for instance including postdocs as well as exploring other possibilities. But we want to proceed gradually and learn from this experience before scaling up, says Nhien Nguyen.