Hello! This is a very
exciting piece of writing for me, as it’s the first time I’ve ever written a
blog. More importantly, it’s the first
time I’ve felt so inspired by the activities of my life that I think it merits
writing a blog!
My name is Cheryl Bone and I have been working for FTSE 100
companies all my life. I’m now making my
first legitimate attempt at breaking out of this mould and starting up on my
own! Yesterday, I started the
Climate-KIC’s (Knowledge & Innovation Centre) the Journey programme in
Berlin. This is a summer entrepreneur
boot camp and is funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology
and runs for 5 weeks in Berlin, London and Paris. It gives bright young minds that are driven
to mitigate climate change the opportunity to do so through devising disruptive
innovations and solutions, offering bespoke coaching and training, and pitching the resulting business plan to venture capitalists and other
interested organisations.
It has already been an extremely exciting (and tiring!) 2
days. I’ve met the most incredible
people coming from all sorts of backgrounds, from astro-physicists and chemical
engineers to product designers and management consultants. Yesterday I learned about the extensive
network and expertise of the organisation and the models it has constructed to
drive the innovation pipeline from idea to successful business. Today, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, I
underwent a crash course in all things climate change. I’m eager to see what tomorrow brings and
impatient to progress to what they call ‘ideation’.
Ideation is the process of innovating at will in order to
identify a problem, assess the resulting need(s) and create the premise of a
potential solution. What I wasn’t
expecting was for the first training lesson in building innovation skills to tell
us to copy! When I think of innovating
and developing unique solutions to problems, I would never think to start with
copying. But this is exactly how to
train the mind in developing solutions.
So many innovations in our history started with slight modifications
before they ever became game changers.
For example, Benjamin Franklin didn’t set out to build a light bulb, but
rather he started with building an electric lamp. The first personal computer, which was
created by Apple, wasn’t the Macintosh, it was actually the Lisa. And the Lisa copied a number of functions
from the first computer, an industrial-sized machine that used switches and
levers rather than a keyboard as the mode of information input. So my mission before the week is out is to
copy something in the area of sustainable agriculture (as this is where my
initial idea for a business has its roots).
Now I’ve got 3 more papers to read before bed and it’s
already 11pm. So much to do! Please stay tuned and watch this space if
you’re finding this interesting. And if
you have any feedback – please let me know!
As I mentioned in the opening of this entry, I’ve never written a blog
before. And for that matter, I’ve never
written any sort of personal narrative.
Keen to hear your thoughts and tips!
This is Cheryl, signing out from my tiny hotel room in Berlin.
C
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