NEWSROOM

Hynds Innovation Education Award winners announced

23 March 2021

Eight University of Auckland academic staff have been recognised for their service to advancing entrepreneurial education at the University of Auckland through the inaugural Hynds Innovation Education Awards.

The Business School’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is currently driving an initiative to embed innovation and entrepreneurship in curricula across the University of Auckland by working with and supporting academics from all faculties. The Hynds Entrepreneurial Fellows Programme’s ambitious and expansive undertakings have been made possible through a generous philanthropic gift from the Hynds Foundation.

Leading the programme is Teaching Fellow Peter Rachor, who has formerly led student innovation at several US universities, and is himself a serial entrepreneur. Peter says that “I have been genuinely impressed collaborating with academic staff from across the University in developing the Hynds Entrepreneurial Fellows Programme. While the award recipients are a really diverse bunch in terms of their subject areas and disciplines, they all have in common a passion and ability for future-focussed and experiential teaching. Each one has done an awesome job in instilling in their students an entrepreneurial mindset and innovative capability that helps to set them up for a bright future”.

Participants in the Hynds Entrepreneurial Fellows Programme have appreciated the expertise and opportunities the programmes have afforded to breathe new life into a wide range of programmes. One of the participants, Associate Professor Shane Scahill says “Pharmacists often have a dual role of being business owners and health care providers. If they are in the public system as hospital pharmacists they need to be equally innovative to deliver the services expected of them. We met with Peter Rachor late in 2019 and outlined our programme and our interest in infusing these threads into our courses. From the “get go” Peter has been very proactive about supporting this. We want to thank the University and the donors (Hynds Family) for providing access to resources of this nature.”

Each Hynds Innovation Education Award winner has received a trophy, fabricated in the University of Auckland’s innovation hub and maker space, Unleash Space.

2020 Hynds Innovation Education Award winners

Jane Bradley – Professional Teaching Fellow, Arts
Jane’s work with the Hynds programme led to integration of Design Thinking methodology, including significant focus on empathy mapping and entrepreneurial mindset in her course CAREER 100 Crafting Your Career. The course culminated in student deliverables and presentations around innovation challenges developed in partnership with NZME, focusing on corporate innovations around several existing problems and opportunities for change.

Dr Hilary Chung – Director of Global Studies
Hilary welcomed the opportunity to experiment with innovation and entrepreneurship in Global Studies course design, exposing high performing students to how they might be able to develop their ideas to make a tangible impact through innovation and social entrepreneurship. She helped to facilitate the opportunity for staff at the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship to run Design Thinking and Presentation Skills workshops for her students to support their participation in the prestigious World’s Challenge Challenge competition. Awarded posthumously

Dr Niki Harré – Associate Professor, Psychology
Niki worked to integrate an innovative game design project in SUSTAIN 200 The Sustainable Community, to drive sustainable behaviours and models through game challenges and outcomes. She further worked to consider the language and approach to innovation best practices in the Sustainability module overall.

Dr Anna Hood – Senior Lecturer, Law
Anna facilitated integration of legal innovation content into her 121G Law and Society course. Lecture content included enhanced access to the legal system through innovation and the impact of emerging technologies such as AI on the profession. Anna leads ongoing discussions to integrate this content as part of the Law curriculum going forward.

Dr Rhys Jones – Professional Teaching Fellow, Statistics
Rhys was the co-coordinator for SCISCHOL 202A Introduction to Science and Innovation. This course is part of the invitation only Science Scholars programme in which ~50 high potential Science students from all disciplines explore their future opportunity for impact through research, innovation and engagement. The course was redesigned with best practice innovation content and projects and will be continued as part of the programme in future years.

Dr Robert Kirkpatrick – Adjunct Professor, Chemical and Materials Engineering
Rob invited Hynds Fellow Peter Rachor to co-coordinate the ENGGEN 403 Managing a Business Case course taken by all Stage 4 Engineering (Honours) students to integrate Innovation and Enterprise terminology, best practice content, and the NZ Government Four Capitals framework. Further, the Systems project representing 40% of course assessment required student teams to develop an innovative solution, taking into account economy and wellbeing, to opening Aotearoa NZ’s borders post COVID-19, and leveraging the opportunity to re-imagine the country’s economy, living standards and future.

Dr Cody Mankelow – Professional Teaching Fellow, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Cody coordinated ENGGEN 303 Managing Projects and Innovation, a course taken by all Stage 3 Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) students and provided the opportunity to fully integrate best practice Innovation and Entrepreneurship content throughout the course. Further, working together with a strong team he integrated the team-based Tutorial Group Innovation Project assignment in which teams went from ideation to business plan for a new innovation, affording teams a chance to enter Velocity competitions and creating the highest level of Engineering student participation in the history of that programme.

Dr Shane Scahill – Associate Professor, Pharmacy
Shane worked with his team to integrate best practice innovation, business model and entrepreneurship content in the language of the pharmacist, healthcare systems and DHB funding models in support of the Integrated Project for PHARM 412, Pharmacy 5, the 45 point capstone paper for all Bachelor of Pharmacy students.