Summer Semester 2021 - Free Elective course

C4E 104: ‘Urban Entrepreneurship: Opportunities in times of uncertainty’

The Centre for Entrepreneurship of the University of Cyprus and Urban Gorillas with the support of PwC Cyprus present the summer semester course:

Urban Entrepreneurship: Opportunities in times of uncertainty, a design thinking workshop that will take place from the 2nd to the 9th of July, and is open to University of Cyprus students of all disciplines.

In order to respond to our current challenges of urban lifestyles as well as the new changes brought about with the Covid-19 pandemic, the workshop aims to spark the interest of the participants and address solutions to the multifaceted topics of urban entrepreneurship.

What are the challenges that cities globally, but more specifically in Cyprus, face today? How can these problems be seen as creative potentials? How do we position ourselves as entrepreneurs and human beings in the current urban realities?

The workshop aims to develop creative solutions to address social, urban, strategic, and organisational problems, through the development of prototypes that could lead to business proposals.

Τρόπος Διεξαγωγής:

When:

Introduction: July 2nd  

Innovation Sprint: 5nd to 9th of July

Who:

Open to undergraduate/postgraduate students with a strong social interest, love for creativity, and in search for challenges

Morning Lectures program (TBA) and Final presentations event will be open to public.

Where:

University of Cyprus, online and physical presence.

Format:

Blended learning: Lectures, workshops, roundtable discussions, urban walks and project development.

Total teaching time: 40 hours

Background

Urbanisation is a relatively new phenomenon in our world history. It was only in 2007 that the people living in urban areas surpassed the people living in rural areas. In a study, the World Health Organisation suggests that by 2050, 70% of the world’s populations will be living in cities. At the same time the UN has set “Sustainable Cities and Communities” as one of their objectives in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Sustainable cities means to build resilient societies and economies by creating better green public spaces, better transport systems, creating sustainable business opportunities, and improving urban planning and management.

Teaching Methods:

The course will adopt diverse teaching techniques, engaging mentors and lecturers from the business, academia, but also the arts world. It will be composed of blended learning with daily online lectures and exercises based on the design thinking principles, discussions and group work together with mentors. The course will feature lectures from professors working in the fields of economics, entrepreneurship, innovation and urbanism enhanced by workshops led by artists, architects and other creatives. The last five days are designed as a sprint where business proposals will be developed along with daily thematic lectures and workshops.

Learning outcomes:

• Acquired an understanding of the field entrepreneurship both theoretically and practically;
• Understand the different steps used by an entrepreneur to start a business;
• Identify and evaluate new business ideas;
• Gain awareness of the opportunities for entrepreneurship in relation to sustainable cities;
• An understanding of design thinking processes in developing your new ideas ;
• An appreciation of the types of problems that can generate entrepreneurial solutions;
• Learning by doing, by interacting with world class specialist in the field of creativity, innovation and urban studies;
• An acquisition of creative visualisation tools (eg. diagramming, video, or storyboards, data visualisation etc) to use for the development of your business proposal;

Calendar July 2-9th 2021 (dates and times TBC) *

• Friday 2nd               10-12.00pm Introduction                                  5-9.00pm Urban Walk/ Group formation
• Monday 5th             10-13.00pm Lectures and discussion               2.30-6.30pm Workshops and project development
• Tuesday 6th            10-13.00pm Lectures and discussion               2.30-6.30pm Workshops and project development
• Wednesday 7th       10-13.00pm Lectures and discussion               2.30-6.30pm Workshops and project development
• Friday 9th                10-13.00pm Wrap up                                        7-10pm Final Event

Trainers:

Teresa Tourvas is a practicing architect, Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Cyprus in the Architecture Department and the Creative Director at Urban Gorillas. Her work focuses on the notion of collaboration and urban dynamics in relation to the design and understanding of public space.

Veronika Antoniou is an architect and urban planner and the managing director at Urban Gorillas. Her work spans many aspects, and includes the practice of architecture, socially-engaged art practices and research on sustainable city development.

Rene Carraz is an Associate Professor at Toyo University, Department of Global Innovation Studies, Japan. He holds a PhD in Economics and teaches and researches science, technology and innovation using an economic perspective. He has been a researcher at Urban Gorillas since 2013.

http://urbangorillas.org/

* Photography, audio, and video recording may occur at a UCY public event. By taking part, you grant UCY full rights to use the audiovisual material for publicity purposes. If you do not wish to be a part of the audiovisual coverage, you are kindly requested to inform the event organizer. More info for the EU General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) here.