Creativity and innovation at an international summer school in RU
Reykjavik University (RU) School of Business, in cooperation with the University of Southern Maine (USM), will host a 10-day summer school on Creativity, Leadership, & Innovation, with focus on sustainable tourism, in Iceland this summer.
Real challenges in Icelandic tourism
Applications are now open for the summer school which will be held July 29th – Agust 11th. The course is at undergraduate level and yields 6 ECTS credits. 20 students from USM are already registered and will be joined by students from Reykjavik University and other universities.
Students will learn important techniques on how to apply creative thinking to business challenges with emphasis on interdisciplinary skills to prepare them for addressing opportunities in a changing world. Through hands-on, experiential learning, they will learn about the real challenges facing tourism companies in Iceland and creatively address these challenges. The course is delivered through a combination of lectures and visits to companies in the Icelandic tourism and innovation industry.
Students in Ru's School of Business take a look at some project posters from a course they attended on sustainable solutions.
Getting ready for the future
„In today‘s environment, companies must look at their operations from new angles. Creativity and innovation are a neccessity. Societies and markets are changing rapidly, due largely to technological advances. We are educating the people who will lead these changes, whowill need to react to new situations. By teaching them how to use their creativity to address challenges and by training them in interdisciplinary team work we are simply giving them the best head start into the future,“ says dr. Páll Melsted Ríkharðsson, dean of RU School of Business.
By the end of the summer school, students will have gained highly sought after skills. „Managers and specialists will need not only to react to changes but also drive changes. They will need to possess the skills to approach various challenges in a creative way to bring about innovative changes. With increased automation and data analysis you might even ask if this initiative is the manager‘s primary objective,“ says Hallur Þór Sigurðarson, assistant professor and one of the summer school‘s teachers.
Innovation has played a large role at RU‘s School of Business since its foundation. The School has organized a course for first year undergraduate students at alls Schools, centered on new ventures and innovation. This course is now a requirement for all first year students in all academic Schools and has served as a role model for a University in Canada that intends to offer such a course as a part of its curriculum.
