From business to classroom and back: leveraging on open innovation to foster entrepreneurial digital transformation skills and practice

Digital transformation is the profound and accelerating process that involves business activities, processes, competencies and models. It is always more crucial to leverage the changes and opportunities produced by digital technologies and their impact across society in a strategic and prioritized way. If previously the acquisition of the product by the customer meant the end of the economic cycle, now organizations are re-envisioning their entire business models, basing themselves on digital feedback loops through sensors, market services and customer feedback arising from a variety of channels. Systems of intelligence entered every aspect of life, underpinned by a digital mindset that is a unique interplay of technology, people and process. We believe that only adopting this mindset and a system-based approach it is possible to put an organisation on the path of digital transformation – and students on the path to master the skills that govern it. In education, we’re becoming familiar with many forms of digital technology and change. From laptops to Wi-Fi, online courses and peer-to-peer collaboration, real-time support based on accessible data, are only instruments and it is necessary to make them deliver a real value to organizations and especially to students. It is not easy, particularly when the will of classroom innovation struggles with the transfer of the learning process into valid entrepreneurial ventures. The responsibility of today is to help to redefine formative processes in and out the classroom using new tools, to build an open/cooperative approach enabling students to learn by doing through the immersive learning experience. The approach of digital transformation led by “IULM Innovation Lab” is focused on outcome and entrepreneurial returns, with a constant monitoring of the results. Combining into a single unit four fundamental phases of our course - Skills, Enablement, Validation, Delivery - we aim at bringing the education from classroom to business and vice versa, by rewiring organizations in need of digital transformation from business to “enhanced” classrooms.