Gillian Sudlow
EU Horizon Europe Projects to Advance Industry ...

In a previous post in this series, we highlighted several of the ongoing EU-wide research projects contributing to the Industry 5.0 vision, supported by the EU Horizon Europe research program. In this post we will add summaries of additional EU research projects addressing similar themes, including those from another EU research programs.

EU Horizon Europe Projects to Advance Industry 5.0 (Part II)
Gillian Sudlow
EU Horizon Europe Projects to Advance Industry ...

In this series of two posts, we will highlight several of the ongoing EU-wide research projects contributing to the Industry 5.0 vision, supported by the EU Horizon Europe research program.

EU Horizon Europe Projects to Advance Industry 5.0 (Part I)
Gillian Sudlow
Humanities Don’t Have a Relevance Problem—They ...

The title of this post is borrowed from Steve’s Substack post on Dec 24th (we know: some of you were still busy wrapping presents) was particularly relevant for our work with faculty members in the Humanities and Social Sciences and our “business case” for their students as potential contributors of distinctive value in workplace innovation teams.

Humanities Don’t Have a Relevance Problem—They Have a Preparation Problem
Gillian Sudlow
WINCan Academic Partner Honoured with a CAUT ...

In June of 2024, Dr. Juan Carlos López of Acadia University participated in our pre-conference workshop on Helping Students to Develop Capability for Inclusive Innovation in the Workplace: An Interdisciplinary Collaboration at the annual meeting of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) annual meeting in Niagara Falls.

WINCan Academic Partner Honoured with a CAUT Equity Award
Gillian Sudlow
The Idea-Centric Firm: How Employee-led ...

Too often, organizations treat “knowledge” as something to be managed rather than created. They are missing the deeper opportunity to empower employees as innovators through  “knowledge flows”.

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The Idea-Centric Firm: How Employee-led Innovation and Knowledge Management Drive Quality and Performance

CMHC Design Challenge

CMHC Design Challenge

In this comprehensive post co-authored by WINCan’s Co-principal Catalyst and Workplace Team Lead, Blake Melnick and Programs Director, Allison Davies, Melnick and Davies outline the Knowledge Management Institute’s six week intensive CMHC Design Innovation Challenge. The objective was for students to come up with innovative solutions to ensuring that every person in Canada should have access to a home that meets their individual or familial needs for less than 30% of their income by the year 2030.

Job Crafting for Industry 4.0 Is Employee-Driven Innovation

Job Crafting for Industry 4.0 Is Employee-Driven Innovation

We hear on a regular basis from our workplace partners that our graduates will need to adapt to Jobs of the Future by working with knowledge that doesn’t yet exist, using knowledge practices and formats that don’t yet exist, in work roles and structures that don’t yet exist. How can we help learners to develop the capabilities needed in order to engage with, make adaptations to and even lead the way on the changes that we can’t yet anticipate?

Design Thinking versus User-Centred Design

Design Thinking versus User-Centred Design

In this post, Karel Vredenberg, Director of Global Academic Programs in IBM’s Design Program Office and Head of IBM Studios Canada, explains how he sees Design Thinking and User-Centred Design not as competing, but rather “integrally linked” frameworks. He goes further to claim that for Design Thinking to be used properly, elements of User-Centred Design should be included as exemplified by IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking.

How Can Professional Scale Design Thinking Shape Learning Experiences in Secondary Schools?

How Can Professional Scale Design Thinking Shape Learning Experiences in Secondary Schools?

In this post from WINCan media specialist Joel Dmitruk, we’ll analyze a leading-edge professional model to identify the similarities and differences with approaches in secondary schools outlined in our previous post. Where have teachers had to make trade-offs?  What lessons can we draw about Design Thinking (DT) in secondary schools as scaffolds toward exemplary professional DT?

Developing and Transferring Design Thinking Capability: an in-course Work-Integrated Learning with a First Nations Sustainable Farm School

Developing and Transferring Design Thinking Capability: an in-course Work-Integrated Learning with a First Nations Sustainable Farm School

NationTalk, an Indigenous newswire service,  posted this news item about an in-course Work-Integrated Learning project with Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Richmond BC), the Tsawwassen First Nation Farm School (Tsawwassen BC) and IBM Canada’s Design Studio (Markham ON).

KM and Workplace Innovation: a pilot course

KM and Workplace Innovation: a pilot course

WINCan’s Co-Principal Catalyst and Workplace Partners Lead, Blake Melnick and Programs Coordinator, Allison Davies begin this post by describing the key elements of innovation capability. They continue with a description of a prototype program of how to foster these elements by treating the “Classroom as a Workplace.”

Academic-Workplace Collaboration to Develop Workplace Innovation Capability: A Design Thinking Example

Academic-Workplace Collaboration to Develop Workplace Innovation Capability: A Design Thinking Example

In this post, Tom Carey and Design instructor  Iryna Karaush explain the instructional design and rationale for a pilot course to integrate concepts of Employee-Driven Workplace Innovation into a Design Thinking course. We wanted  to see how existing pedagogies for Design Thinking might be extended to situate Design Thinking in a broader workplace context and to build  an understanding of the multiple roles which employees might undertake in a Design Thinking project.

Demonstrating the Capabilities of B.A. Graduates Through Workplace Innovation

Demonstrating the Capabilities of B.A. Graduates Through Workplace Innovation

In this post, Tom Carey and Deanne Gannaway highlight five reasons why BA graduates make ideal candidates for workplace innovation. The skills they learn and practice through their coursework provide a critical lens through which to view workplace challenges and inspire new ideas and ways of doing. This post also introduces two of the Heroes of Humanities cards which will be highlighted in future posts.

Announcing Workplace Innovation Canada Incorporated (WINCan Inc.)

Announcing Workplace Innovation Canada Incorporated (WINCan Inc.)

The WINCan initiative – Workplace Innovation Network for Canada – began in 2015. Tom Carey, former AVP at the University of Waterloo and Blake Melnick, CEO/CKO of the Knowledge Management Institute of Canada (KMIC) met to discuss Canada’s poor track record of innovation relative to other developed countries, and the present ability of post-secondary institutions to meet the demands of a workforce facing exponential change:

Using productive disruption in higher education

Using productive disruption in higher education

Jessica Riddell is an award-winning teacher at Bishop's University, Executive Director of the Maple League of Universities and project leader for their WINCan partnership. In this edition of her University Affairs column, Jessica explores how collaboration across institutions and sectors is bound to be disruptive for academic partners:

An Overview of Community Innovation Trends - Part One: Design-Based Approaches

An Overview of Community Innovation Trends - Part One: Design-Based Approaches

In this post, Galen MacLusky, Consulting Director of the Tamarack Institute’s Community Innovation Idea Area links to his research note on Community Innovation Trends. If you're not familiar with the Community Innovation notion, it refers to a particular form of social innovation that is place-based –​ within the specific geography of a community. 

The danger of fetishizing failure in the academy

The danger of fetishizing failure in the academy

Jessica Riddell is an award-winning teacher at Bishop's University, Executive Director of the Maple League of Universities and project leader for their WINCan partnership. In this edition of her University Affairs column, Jessica writes about the need to provide safe spaces for students to experience and learn from failure, while exploring the dangers of "normalizing failure without taking a hard look at the system within which it happens".

Reflecting on Workplace Innovation for BioEngineering Technology and Services

Reflecting on Workplace Innovation for BioEngineering Technology and Services

In this post, Kevin Joslin, undergraduate BioEngineering student and Research Assistant with medical devices at the University of California San Diego, shares a student’s perspective on workplace innovation in the context of bio-engineering and technology services.

When I think of innovation, I always think of the product as new technologies and ideas, instead of the process of innovation itself. From my brief dive into a seeming Renaissance of new innovation and product development methods, I have seen the importance of further developing the way we approach inventiveness and technological progress.

How Can a Narrative Perspective Add Value to Innovation as a Social Process?

How Can a Narrative Perspective Add Value to Innovation as a Social Process?

How can an understanding of Narrative add value to workplace innovation as a social process?

That’s the key question driving our development of a new learning resource on Narrative Perspectives for Workplace Innovation. Our team at Kwantlen Polytechnic University – English professor Jennifer Williams and myself as a recent B.A. graduate – are part of a Learning and Teaching Innovation initiative within the Faculty of Arts. Our aim is to equip graduates with an interdisciplinary perspective on innovation as a social process, so they can contribute distinctive value to innovation projects in the workplace (and in their other roles as community members and global citizens).

Lifting the Blinders on Innovation

Lifting the Blinders on Innovation

WINCan workplace partner Galen MacLusky, Director of Community Innovation for the Tamarack Institute, discusses how taking the time to explore why you want to innovate can help you expose potential pitfalls that otherwise may have been missed. Galen describes three different community innovation drivers and the various risks that accompany each. With each risk, Galen provides some common questions that can help you uncover where a focus on innovation may take you away from your goals. (originally posted this month on the Tamarack Institute website).