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Principal and Practice of Global Innovation

Based on the belief that “what you learn depends on with whom you learn”, the primary goal of this course is to provide students with an interactive, learner-centered environment in which they can learn with, and from, their peers (i.e., students who registered in a sister course at a partner university of the Viterbi iPodia (ViP) Alliance*) from other countries with different cultural and social backgrounds. Using the advanced distance education technology to eliminate the physical and temporal distance among learners, students go through interactive lecture discussions, cross-cultural exercises, case studies, reading assignments, and term projects together as cohorts to learn how to leverage the cultural differences among stakeholders as a source of inspiration for technological innovations on the global market. Through this intensive peer-to-peer learning experience, students can not only develop global perspectives but also expand personal networks with their global contemporaries, which is the secondary goal of this course.

The learning objective of this socio-technical course subject is to prepare global innovation leaders of the future. Having completed the learning in this course, students should be able to understand how to use various socio-technical factors to identify the emerging global market trends as innovation targets, before individual customers become aware of their needs and want. This “doing the right thing” first is a key to successful innovation. As well, after taking the course, students should be able to master the principle of systematic ideation of new concepts to meet the identified innovation targets. This “doing the thing right” is another important key to successful innovation. Besides the ability to identify innovation target and ideate new concepts, the personal connections which students developed through peer-to-peer learning in this course will become a great asset to their future career as a global leader in any professional field they choose to pursue.