Insight works with schools around the country to engage students and faculty on Innovation and design
Insight Product Development is working closely with a number of prestigious universities to engage students and faculty on Innovation and design. Insight has worked with universities for many years and this year six Insighters have been involved with some exciting and unique programs.
At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director of Engineering Eric Sugalski from Insight's Boston office is mentoring the students enrolled in a design course entitled "Product Design Engineering" on the design and development of a product for the home. The class puts the students in real-world situations by having them work within a budget and timeline. They experience the process of developing new product ideas and learning strategies for successful innovation.
Northwestern University brought together a select group of students from the medical, law, engineering and business schools for a unique course entitled "NUvention: Medical Innovation". This course asks multidisciplinary teams of students to develop medical products and allows them the opportunity to turn their product concepts into real businesses.
In October, Ed Geiselhart, Insight's director of product development, lectured on the importance of opportunity analysis in medical product development with the NU students. Ed, along with Senior Partner Craig Scherer, are mentoring the students throughout the course by helping them evaluate the merits of each of their product ideas and help utilize research data to further develop each concept.
Insight is also working with the University of Michigan's Tech Transfer group, an organization sponsored by UM that helps their faculty and grad students commercialize new technology for the development of medical products. The Tech Transfer group helps inventors gain patent protection and demonstrate the feasibility of the technology. Insight is counseling the inventors on opportunity analysis and product development so they can utilize their seed money effectively.
Innovative Interns
Insight has longstanding relationships with research, engineering and design programs at the University of Cincinnati, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, North Carolina State and Arizona State University. Every year the company hires a several interns on a rotating basis to work on a range of client projects which help them gain valuable experience for their careers.
"We view our internship program as being very mutually beneficial," said Geiselhart. "We want the students to apply their classroom knowledge to real client work and we want to guide them and help them learn more about the industry."
Working with universities allows Insight to teach the students about application of their skills to real projects, and it also helps Insight maintain a connection the academic world and the latest teaching and theories.
