Innovation Sprint in Amsterdam (formerly Design Sprint for Corporate Innovation)
Instructors: Sam Ha
The purpose of this course is to provide students with an interactive, highly dynamic and deeply engaging approach to leading business innovation. Students will learn a structured approach to a corporate business challenge—building and deepening an understanding of applied innovation, human-centered design, prototyping, and entrepreneurship.
The course will focus on a Dutch corporate client and an important, board-level business issue. A more detailed briefing will be provided before departure to Amsterdam. Before visiting the Netherlands, students will research the topic and, throughout the course, will connect with the client several times. Past clients include leading companies the Netherlands, such as Booking.com, ASICS, ING (a top Dutch bank), Jumbo (second largest Dutch grocery chain), Ayden (global payments FinTech), and more.
The majority of the course will take place at the THNK School of Creative Leadership in Amsterdam (www.thnk.org) along with THNK innovation facilitators. THNK’s curriculum draws on many different schools of thought from leadership to performing arts to entrepreneurship at scale to business consulting.
Sign-up Process
This course is dual listed with the Full Time MBA Program. Participation in this course is restricted to students enrolled at Haas. Attendance at the pre-departure class session and posted in-country dates is mandatory. Please check your availability for the dates prior to bidding; once you are enrolled in the course, you will not be allowed to drop the course.
Enrollment will be done via the Bidding Process. Students enrolled in Innovation Sprint via Bidding or in the special Add Only round will only be able to drop the course via the Exception Request process and only for compelling and emergent reasons.
*Students who sign-up must commit to participate fully in the program. DO NOT SIGN-UP IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO MAKE THE IN-CLASS DATE AT HAAS AND THE IN-COUNTRY WORK DATES.*
Logistics
Students are responsible for making their own travel arrangements to/from the program location, lodging, and obtaining and paying for any required visas. In most cases, in-country travel such as transportation to/from the business meetings, and transportation between different cities on the program’s itinerary, will be covered by Haas. Although it is possible that some meals will be provided, students should expect to pay for their own meals and all incidentals while traveling with the program.
Students are required to be in-country for all instructional days and actively participate in the program per the itinerary. Students who wish to spend additional time in-country are encouraged to do so either before or after the mandatory programming and instructional days.
Health & Safety Issues
Travel overseas, especially to developing countries and emerging markets, may expose participants to health and other risks different from those that they face at home. Although we will do our best to make participants aware of such risks and will make efforts to minimize risks, the ultimate responsibility lies with the participant. Students are advised to check with the Centers for Disease Control and the US State Department for information on health and safety issues.
Each participant must obtain, at their own expense, any vaccinations, inoculations or other medications considered appropriate for a prudent traveler to the destination(s).
Each participant must register themselves and obtain a free trip insurance policy with the University of California’s Office of Risk Services at least 30 days prior to travel (click on UC Away). This policy covers students for emergency medical evacuation to the United States. This is a requirement for participating in Design Sprint for Corporate Innovation. Evidence of registration must be provided to the EWMBA Program Office in advance of the program departure.