HOW VIRTUAL LABS ARE REVOLUTIONIZING SCIENCE EDUCATION
REIMAGINE NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 28
Since the launch of the UAE National Innovation Strategy in 2014, Zayed University has engaged in innovative teaching and learning, smart services, and innovation research. In response to the dynamic nature of today’s world, the primary focus of the university has extended beyond academic requirements, instead placing a strong emphasis on cultivating the entrepreneurial and innovation mindset of our students as we prepare them for real world challenges and the uncertain future.
Zayed University’s Centre for Educational Innovation played a crucial role in teaching and learning innovations making major impacts with mobile learning in 2012. However, to create a culture of innovation in accordance with the National Innovation Strategy several awareness campaigns, and on and off campus innovation exhibitions were launched. These initiatives included innovation circles and Design Thinking workshops for students, staff and faculty to foster creativity, collaboration and problem-solving skills. As a federal government university, our duty is to develop individuals and an institution equipped with the capacity to enhance ‘the overall quality of life’ while contributing to the knowledge economy and future workforce needs.
To deliver the highest academic quality, Zayed University offered Intensive training programs for staff and faculty at some of the world’s top universities including Stanford, MIT, Cambridge and Oxford. As a result, our university General Education program offers a robust hands-on innovation and entrepreneurship course that is available to all students. Ideas from faculty and staff from colleges and units are proposed through an e-form and, whether related to teaching and learning technologies or technological services, are supported and encouraged, aiming to create a culture conducive to high-impact innovative research. Our areas of funded innovations range from technological (apps), environmental, health, educational and scientific innovations, which directly improve academic quality, research and the wider community.
2016 witnessed a pilot cross-discipline accelerator program in collaboration with the Dubai Futures Accelerators and the launch of a fabrication lab while 2017 saw the success of an entrepreneurship club for students from various disciplines. These success stories have led to the establishment of our very own Innovation and Entreprenurship Centre which will be open in first quarter of 2019 to formally carry out mentoring programs that offer students the opportunity to develop ‘start-up’ ideas into actual businesses prior to their graduation.
Having explored best practice through trial and error and exposure to creative efforts, Zayed University is now well positioned with a strategy that is built on key processes and simple rules to guide the innovation process in a way that can balance structure with improvisation – a strategy that is capable of having clear and simple rules for ideation, ownership, selection, governance, prioritization, funding and financing, including scaling excellence and exit rules. The bottom-up approach has allowed us to better understand our context as we develop a strategy with a ‘Velcro’ effect, which serves our own unique situation and is adaptable to change.
With scaling excellence being the goal of innovation and the duty of the decision makers, our leadership team has made major strides in realizing their role in the process by actively participating in our 2018 university-wide Design Sprint which kick started the academic year. Recognizing that leading innovation differs significantly from that of routine work, we look forward to an academic year that will see us lead innovation and collaborative efforts with a robust and fresh perspective that capitalizes on the wealth of our resources and talent pool. Our mission for the next few years is to achieve excellence in innovation as we strive to do more and do it better believing that innovation comes from anyone and anywhere and excellence should spread to everyone and everywhere.