What is each subject about?

Our core subjects are:

• Innovation in Complex Systems (81539)
• Fundamentals of Innovation (94662)
• Innovation Futures: Thinking Beyond What Is (94657)
• Navigating Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (94663)

Elective subjects are:

• Complexity and Sustainability (94665)
• Innovation Funding Platforms (94658) 
• Leadership in Innovation (81540) 
• Frame Innovation (81538)

Innovation in Complex Systems (81539)

Participants are challenged to analyse problem situations from multiple perspectives and to integrate these findings in ways that lead to new possibilities. The nature of this subject embraces today's open, complex, dynamic and networked problems. Through first-hand experience, students are inspired to experiment and hone their skills through multidisciplinary collaboration, visualisation, representation and presentation.

Fundamentals of Innovation (94662)

This subject is a core innovation subject in the diploma, the frameworks learned in this subject will be used throughout the course of studying the Diploma in Innovation. Students are divided into teams at random and work to create an idea that will result in a minimum viable product. Students will work with various innovation tools such as ideation, Business model canvasing, Product Requirements Documentation, Go To Market documentation and Venture Capital Pitching.

Navigating Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (94663)

This subject provides a rich understanding of environments and ecosystems that enable productive entrepreneurship. Students explore and become confident navigators of entrepreneurial ecosystems through immersive interaction with diverse key stakeholders and visualise the ecosystem as a 'map'. This visualisation and students' knowledge of the ecosystem becomes the foundation for their ability to initiate change. By the end of this subject, students are 'guides' in the ecosystem and have developed a capacity to leverage such ecosystems to advance their own initiative or venture.

Innovation Futures: Thinking Beyond What Is (94657)

This subject engages participants in examining connections, patterns, and trends in the contexts of real-world challenges in order to discover avenues for initiatives, innovation and future development. The subject begins with identifying conditions required for the emergence of ideas, inspiration and change through examining historical cases of innovation. Participants analyse a contemporary challenge to situate its components and inter-dependencies as part of a big-picture complex system. Drawing on that collective case analysis, they propose worthwhile avenues for speculative exploration and innovation. They experiment using futuring methods to explore alternative future scenarios or worlds and to evaluate them in terms of impact. The subject culminates with participants developing an argument for and a speculative vision of a 'Future of X', recognising its implications and their agency with regard to making futures.

Complexity and Sustainability (94665)

This subject introduces complexity and systems thinking with a focus on real-world sustainability issues. Students probe the nature and characteristics of complex systems and design interventions that move these systems towards sustainable futures. They explore a variety of mapping, modelling and intervention strategies and apply them to a current and complex sustainability challenge. Through this process, students creatively and rigorously test key qualities they have identified in a complex system and put forward proposals that initiate change for sustainable futures.

Innovation Funding Platforms (94658)

This subject explores the world of innovation funding; students learn the process by which an innovation business or project is funded. Using a range of learning approaches to increase knowledge adaptation, students are divided at random in teams where they explore the funding ecosystem, develop a funding proposal for an innovative idea or project, and critically analyse funding prospects. Students come away having a firm knowledge of the funding process and the components necessary to seek funding for an innovative idea or project.

Leadership in Innovation (81540)

This subject focuses on understanding how innovation leadership, methods and creative practice can provoke innovation. Participants' ideas for designing an innovative solution in the context of complex systems are rethought. Faced with a problem, participants create propositions in a collaborative multidisciplinary environment, shape processes of discovery and exploration, generate solutions, and anticipate challenges for the dissemination of their proposed solution. The subject promotes participants' potential for research, analysis and creative practice, and empowers students to develop their leadership skills.