The 3^rd SID Master’s group started their Service Innovation & Design studies at Laurea Leppävaara on 6^th September.

For three days, the 26 new students were completely submerged in the Laurea’s cocreative learning culture, which provides the foundation for success as they pursue the Master’s programme together. With team-building activities, the new students were able to establish networks and build connections from the very start. Through highly engaging and innovative processes, they were given the chance to meet their fellow students on a professional and personal level.

In the first day, the new students also met a few former SID students and SID graduates, who gave them valuable advice in a panel discussion.  From the faculty point of view, it was really awesome to hear these graduates telling how much they actually use their learning in their daily work and how useful they see the whole SID programme after completing it. They highlighted that the Master’s thesis was the most challenging part in their studies.

The new SID students have very interesting backgrounds:

First, they come from 12 different countries in 4 continents (Europe, Asia, North America and Africa). Most of them have been working in Finland for years – a few will fly to Finland once a month for the contact sessions.

Second, they have nicely varying educational backgrounds in business studies, design, engineering, IT, and social sciences.

Third, they work for many kinds of companies varying from multinational corporations to SMEs and start-ups, from service industries to manufacturing, from private to public sector.

What a great group for any kind of innovation workshops and similar!

In the first day, the new students had an extremely inspiring visiting lecturer: CEO Helene Auramo from Zipipop. She talked very nicely and professionally about using social media in business. Her presentation slides are here.

We are all looking forward to the next face-to-face contact session in the beginning of October.