Finally, after several exciting (and, at times, stressful) months of planning, coordinating, and hustling, we formally launched RI to the community! Our inaugural cohort of Rhodes entrepreneurs came together on October 21 and 22 to participate in RI’s first IDEATE weekend, a high-energy event that exposed everyone to the full breadth of people and ideas around them.
The People
Over 20 scholars, several geographical constituencies, a milieu of academic backgrounds, and the full spectrum of entrepreneurial experience, the IDEATE weekend achieved exactly what we were aiming for: bringing together diverse people with rich ideas. We also had several alumni come in to deliver Lightning Talks; John Lazar, Abigail Seldin, Noam Angrist, Glenn Leighton, and Charles Conn all shared a snippet of their own entrepreneurial insight. We’d like to thank them for their wonderful support in making IDEATE a success!
The Process
Our IDEATE weekend took participants through a design-thinking process, beginning with idea generation and ending with pitching. The goal was to challenge each scholar to rapidly iterate through a human-centred design innovation process and get a feel for working with their colleagues. Several Senior Scholars/alumni commented on how amazing it was to see Rhodes House transformed into an open-concept ‘innovation hub’ that really allowed creative juices to flow. We at RI strongly believe that physically bringing people together in spaces like this will result in better ideas, team dynamics, and work.