Design Thinking

Design Thinking is the innovation process developed at Stanford that has fueled much of part of the entrepreneurial culture in Silicon Valley.

Open Innovation for Companies

Our Open Innovation programs are based on the involvement of university students, recent graduates, young professionals and researchers who take on innovation challenges proposed by companies, of all industries and sizes.

An ecosystem of innovation

These programs are designed and managed within the innovation ecosystem of the University of Bologna, of which Almacube is a Technical Partner. Our faculty consists of innovation coaches, university professors and researchers who are experts in design thinking and business innovation.

Why do open innovation with Almacube?

Get in touch with the University of Bologna's top talent, selected from students and recent graduates of the University's 32 departments.

Expose your company's management to the methodology of design thinking, generating a new culture of innovation among your employees.

It addresses complex challenges that encompass multiple problems at their core, bringing clarity and generating useful learnings to develop novel innovative solutions.

Open Innovation Programs

oper.CBI

CBI is a 5-month program in which a team of students with multidisciplinary backgrounds develop and solve an innovation challenge proposed by the company, getting inspired by and interacting with technological and digital ideas from CERN and applying a human-centered approach.

oper.SUGAR

Assign your innovation challenge to a multidisciplinary and international team, consisting of 4 students from the University of Bologna and 4 students from a foreign university part of SUGAR’s network. The talented team works on the challenge for 9 months, applying design thinking under the guidance of our experienced coaches. The program includes international mobility in Asia and Silicon Valley and numerous opportunities for the company and students to meet.

Design thinking EMBEDDED

Bring in a multidisciplinary team of young professionals to work closely with your seniors on solving an internal innovation challenge. The program allows you to prototype and develop a concrete, low-cost, limited-risk solution in 13 weeks, leveraging insights gained from your consumers and following the Design Thinking process with the help of one of our senior coaches.

Design thinking COACHING

Engage your team of internal employees in an intensive 1-3 month innovation journey facilitated and led by our expert design thinking coaches. The program is developed based on your company’s specific needs and includes weekly meetings attended by contact persons from different business areas. It can serve both to conduct exploratory analysis and to prototype and test Proof of Concept.

Venture Clienting

Venture clienting is a new model of cooperation between startups and companies, an alternative to venture capital. The company does not buy equity of a startup but becomes its client (venture client) and validates the solution in the field. A Venture Clienting project consists of three modular phases: recruitment, activation and evolution. Find out how it works.