Innovation in action: IIEP participants present their ideas

On Wednesday 27 November, our Innovation Programme cohort presented their projects at a highly informative and entertaining final session at Stirling Court Hotel.

The programme participants and PhD students represented a range of academic institutions, businesses and organisations from the aquaculture sector.

Course leader Zach Sorrels from Skillfluence introduced the session, explaining to the invited audience how this part of the programme had been run: teams or three or four people selected a real-life problem or challenge to work on, and researched the topic to gain a better understanding of the issue. Using skills gained during the programme, each team generated around 15 ideas – from ‘crazy ideas’ to realistic innovation – from which some nuggets had emerged.

The teams selected one idea to take into the discovery phase, during which they worked on ‘making the unknown known’, and where, Zach said, some “genuinely fantastic work” had been done.

This was certainly evident from the presentations on the day: the three teams confidently presented innovative ideas that may in time provide workable and profitable solutions to challenges within fish health & welfare, wastes management, and the reuse and upcycling of material. The participants had clearly taken on the message that “problems are opportunities”.

Not only were the presentations well received by the audience – the Innovation Programme itself has been very well received by its participants. In the final feedback survey, the question “Would you recommend this course to a friend or colleague?” produced a referral score of 9.3/10 – an excellent result. We look forward to starting the next course (find out more about SAIC’s skills and training programmes here) and to hearing more from these young innovators in future.