#paulmignone

Aliza Wajih

Yes we didn’t win, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t one of my greatest team experiences ever! Shark’s Den gave me the opportunity to meet amazing people and taught me valuable start-up business lessons such as marketing, management, innovation and the most important of them all, the value of teamwork.

Absolutely smashing time at tonight's #sharksden! Thanks for the fun ride! @PJMignone @awajih08 @ResPlat @ResBaz pic.twitter.com/Xsh2R7GQIb

— Vincent Khau (@thevinniek)

July 29, 2015

I had the opportunity to work with dedicated teams every Wednesday in July and it was inspiring to see such good work being done. Every team in every session had come up with innovative and unique ideas. Their passion and dedication was truly reflected in all of their work and despite being in a competition everyone mantained a supportive and creative environment.

At the end of every session I would usually have a chat with members of other teams and we would share our thoughts on our projects. Their constructive and positive feedback did not only help me understand different points of view but also helped me make better decisions.

All teams working hard at #sharksden! 1 week to go! @awajih08 @PJMignone @ResPlat @ResBaz pic.twitter.com/dVvS8qWJQQ

— Vincent Khau (@thevinniek)

July 22, 2015

Working with my own team, Team Next-Gen Phone Cover, was itself an excellent learning experience. The support, encouragement and passion of my team allowed me to get through times when, even as a CEO, I began to doubt our decisions. Chris, Guna, Ali and Katie put their heart and soul into finding the idea we were passionate about and bringing it to life. I could not have been prouder nor could I have wished for a better team. I would like to thank you all for all your efforts.

Last (but definitely not least) is group 4, "Next Gen Cover" attempting to solve our smart phone woes! #SharksDen pic.twitter.com/tr7iWk1M9u

— Research Platforms (@ResPlat)

July 29, 2015

By Aliza Wajih

The final day of shark’s den before the big pitch is finally here!  

Last day in the workshops peeps! Next week is #pitching time! #sharksden pic.twitter.com/2TRs0I9z9s

— Paul Mignone (@PJMignone)

July 22, 2015

On day four of the sharks den challenge the teams were fortunate enough to meet Wen Xi who is an Associate at ‪@MAPUniMelb! 

In the presence of greatness, @Wen_Xi_ teaches our sharks to pitch their design at #sharksden @Carlton_Connect pic.twitter.com/0roDPY9ob1

— Paul Mignone (@PJMignone)

July 22, 2015

For the first half of the session, Wen gave an excellent crash courses on ‘how to pitch’: helping students tailor their presentations to make a compelling business case and answering some interesting questions in the follow up. Wen gave the team some handy tips on how to create a business model and taught us that contrary to popular belief having competition in the market is a good thing!

All teams working hard at #sharksden! 1 week to go! @awajih08 @PJMignone @ResPlat @ResBaz pic.twitter.com/dVvS8qWJQQ

— Vincent Khau (@thevinniek)

July 22, 2015

  During the rest of the session teams shared their first prototype 3D printed objects and amended designs to build their final product supported by research and further investigation in the market.

Looking forward to The Dock Library mini make day hosted by my good friend .@koshertonystark. Register here http://t.co/GnFxFLDTMB! @unimelb

By Aliza Wajih

ResBaz was a great success in bringing researchers of diverse academic backgrounds together and giving them the opportunity to learn about the next generation digital tools to improve their research.

We saw a range of different academic come into our CADstream to create and design their ideas as well as see digital models of theirwork. We designed the course to cater for the needs of academics from diverse backgrounds as our class included researchers and PhD candidates from biomedical, social, and computer sciences as well as arts and a few more!

 Look at us all ready to kick-start the 3 day training!

The CAD stream basically introduced the participants to the digital tool called AutoDesk Inventor. Inventor is used to design 3d models and is largely used in the engineering, entertainment and architectural industries. Autodesk inventor offers a 3 year free license for academics!

source (http://www.autodesk.com.au/products/inventor/overview) 

As this software is a little difficult to get started with for new users we organized the rooms to encourage collaboration and teamwork! The participants brought their different sets of expertise to the table and shared their knowledge with each other. It was lovely to see how genuinely interested everyone was to learn and engage in the course and how quickly everyone picked up a very challenging software!

The best part about our class was the open line of communication between the demonstrators and the participants. Getting verbal feedback as well as live feedback from comments section in Google docs allowed us to stress, review and reteach areas of study that everyone found more challenging. 

We got some great feedback from everyone, here are a few!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants for their lovely feedback, I would also like to thank Paul(@paulmignone) and our amazing team of volunteers (Vincent, Bobby, Karlo, Tony, and Serina) without whom this course could not have been the success that it was!

By Aliza Wajih

At Research Platforms we know that one of the most essential elements of running a successful course is making sure that the content beingdelivered is relevant, informative and interesting to the students. However we also know that it is equally as essential to supplement the course with engaging and effective content delivery techniques.

Introducing the ResBaz CAD Team! 

The Resbaz CAD team was heavily involved in the 3-day Train-the-Trainer invent that was held prior to the Research Bazar 2015 where trainers were taught how to teach. In the lead up to Resbaz we focused on finding the most effective ways of organizing, designing, and delivering lecture content. Knowing that the participants in our class came from diverse academic background, one of our major challenges was to design a course that would intrigue everyone.

For me personally, Train-the-Trainer was an invaluable learning experience. I got to learn from some very smart, talented and driven people namely, my peers and my mentor Paul Mignone (@paulmignone). This course was a success as a direct result of the team effort that we put together. Here is a picture of us doing just that on Day 1!

During Train-the-Trainer we collaborated and supported each other to perform our best. We practiced delivering lectures and shared our views on how to make them more engaging and interesting. As our main focus was to design a student-centred course we constantly brainstormed and encouraged new ideas to teach more effectively rather than use ineffective traditional teaching methods. 

As a result of innovative approach to making this course we came up with some great ideas, one of which was including exercises that would keep the course fun and interesting (i.e Lego man) and another was to allow the student to give live feedback on course notes in Google Docs.

 Check out this musical warrior!

 Train-the-Trainer gave us the opportunity to critically look at our work, step back, redefine problems and work on developing better techniques. It gave us the time to perfect the art of teaching, see potential pitfalls, plan for future improvements and make the process of iteravively designing courses much easier and productive.

This trying to figure out how to put a lid on the USB! ( Hint: Its easier in real life!)