ACTIVE INNOVATIVE PRACTICE IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION PROCESSES

Abstract

The current role of the engineer, particularly in the Colombian and Latin American context, demands active participation in both public and private organizations, to create opportunities to innovate from a technical perspective. With this context in mind, an interdisciplinary group of researchers have developed a system of innovation through education. This system is called InnovAndes. PURPOSE It is a space that the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota Colombia offers to generate proposals for innovation, entrepreneurship and, technology-based developed by interdisciplinary students and professionals. APPROACH Designing innovative technology through these courses aims to ensure engineering education aligns with learning practices of innovation and entrepreneurship. In this paper we want to share the lead of the first course of choice: Science, Technology and Innovation. This is a course developed by four engineers in the areas of electrical / electronic, environmental, and industrial computer systems. This course is intended to develop students' holistic view of the innovation system in order to broaden the understanding of the great challenges facing the country. The course activities are designed and focused on a) real ventures and b) major themes of innovation and national and international entrepreneurship. RESULTS The results obtained on the course are the following: interdisciplinary projects involved on different projects like education on several contexts, fostering management, business and entrepreneurship, mostly of them continuing their process with their thesis. CONCLUSIONS With this paper we propose a discussion of how active practice in engineering education processes can challenge and enable students to develop creative processes that have real impact.