Programme

The Summer School brings together a global network of learners.

This session, facilitated by our current students, aims to help you get to know your classmates better and understand different ways of working across cultures. It aims to:

• Identify intercultural study/working interests
• Provide tips on what works (and what doesn't) in multi-national teams – this will be useful preparation for week one's team-based task
• Identify cultural norms: assumptions, what is being polite?
• Set some initial ground rules

This session uses practical exercises and guided review to explore ways in which you can enhance the performance of a team.

You'll take part in a range of tasks designed to highlight common ways in which team performance can come unstuck and the behaviours that can stop this happening.

You will work in groups of seven or eight to give as many people as possible the chance to lead, participate and observe – all elements that contribute to understanding and learning.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges to development today.

While climate change poses a number of risks to vulnerable communities and businesses around the world, many opportunities are unfolding for private companies to implement actions towards reducing risks to their business operations.

There are also opportunities for businesses to invest in adaptation action in vulnerable regions in a sustainable and profitable manner.

This session will give you an understanding of what climate change is, its impact and the challenges businesses and academia face as they find innovations to tackle these problems.

The aim of this session is to provide you with an understanding of current challenges in global health and the latest innovations to meet these challenges.

This session will cover:

• What is Global Health?
• Problems and challenges
• Solutions with case studies examples
• Current innovations in global health

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve several billion users worldwide.  Whether for business or leisure, use of the internet is becoming part of our daily lives. 

To understand what impact this have, the session will cover:

• An introduction/overview of the internet and its power
• Current challenges of the internet and problems faced by companies
• What businesses are doing to overcome these challenges?
• Current innovations in managing internet challenges (academic and business)

Modern science typically involves big data, taking advantage of high-throughput data capture and high-performance computing capabilities.

Data science is therefore an essential element of all modern interdisciplinary scientific activities.

It acts as the glue to facilitating collaborative scientific discovery and involving the whole life cycle of data, from acquisition and exploration to analysis and communication of the results.

Data science is not only concerned with the tools and methods to obtain, manage and analyse data, it is also about extracting value from data and translating it from asset into insight.

This session aims to showcase data science and its applications to address data-driven scientific grand challenges.

This session provides an insight into machine learning, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). 

You will learn about the latest real-world application and innovation in the area and see how robotics can reshape the future and transform the world in different sectors.

This expert-led module will help your understanding of how businesses differentiate and compete in global markets.

You will learn to define and build business models and how to market ideas to establish competitive advantage.

Topics covered will include:

• Building and improving business models that drive growth and innovation
• Evaluating ideas to determine which to pursue
• Creating strategies to differentiate and market products/brands
• Leveraging market insights to strengthen competitive position
• Identifying the most appropriate marketing mix, considering: product, price and global position

This session lays the ground work for the group presentations at the end of week two. Working in teams, you will identify an idea to address one of the global challenges which you have explored during week one.

You will be required to present a business model and marketing plan for this idea as a group as a way of consolidating your learning. We hope it will also produce some great ideas which you may be inspired to take further beyond the Summer School.

You’ll hear from our Imperial entrepreneurs their journey to start up their own companies.

This session helps you "to think outside the box" to generate ideas.

The techniques presented and tried during the session are particularly useful for people who do not believe they have time to think differently due to the pressures of daily life.

The workshop will take you through a pragmatic six-stage problem solving process. You will apply the process from problem definition through to implementation.

This workshop will look at applying design thinking to one of the global challenge themes drawing on the museum’s resources for context and inspiration. 

You will also have the opportunity to visit the museum.

This workshop will take you on a journey through fundamental principles of communication and presentation.

Through interactive exercises, plenary and interaction you will learn more about your strengths and natural abilities, and how to perform at your higher level.

The session will allow you to work experientially within a group setting and will give you exercises, ideas, tips and practises for inclusion in your presentations on the last day.

The ability to negotiate solutions and influence people so that everyone involved agrees and commits to those solutions requires thought, analysis and practice.

Good negotiation skills are a key aspect of personal effectiveness.

Linked to persuasiveness, conflict handling, assertiveness and active listening skills, success in negotiation can be increased by learning and applying key behaviours.

This workshop emphasises the need for careful thought and planning before negotiations.

Key topics covered are:

• the situation
• who is involved
• their motives and objectives
• styles of communication
• preparation: bargaining and planning
• signs of conflict and dealing with conflict

Negotiation exercises allow participants to practise and identify key improvement opportunities.