J-Term Students Build Skills in Innovation and Creativity

Jan 26 2014

NYU Stern faculty member Luke Williams travels the world consulting with top companies and speaking to captive audiences of leading executives with his message of disruptive innovation. The message is simple: organizations must rely on innovation and unconventional creativity to succeed, and in order to truly innovate, individuals must enhance their creative abilities.

This January, Professor Williams brought his message and his course, Innovation and Creativity, to 76 J-term students at NYU Shanghai. Students are utilizing Professor Williams’ book, Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business, as a framework for exploring how all people are inherently creative, and creativity is a skill that can be learned and cultivated. Designed for students from any major, the course focuses not only on the changing dynamics of organizations in the 21st century, but also on how students can stimulate creative thinking in themselves and others, and apply that thinking to practical situations.

The course will culminate with presentations on a group-designed market- and technology-appropriate consumer product or service that could potentially disrupt its market. Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with course participants praising the structure of the course, and their fellow classmates for earnestly digging in and working hard to develop groundbreaking products- as well as pushing preconceived notions of personal creative capacity. Rather than spending winter break on a couch, watching television, NYU Shanghai students continue to strive to think outside the box and build skills to positively impact the world around them.