As part of the international online lecture series to mark the university's 50th anniversary, the focus on Thursday was on the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), with which HWG LU has a long-standing partnership.
Tuisha Stack, Administrative Director of the Bryan School of Business and Economics, first introduced her university in the public lectures and referred to the many years of shared history: the US university, founded in the 19th century as an educational institution for women, has been cooperating with HWG LU and in particular with the Transatlantic Institute for 25 years. Since then, more than 100 Ludwigshafen students have taken advantage of the opportunity to spend some time at the partner university on the US East Coast and, as part of this cooperation, have crowned the dual BIP program (International Business Administration in Practice) with a US MBA degree.
In the subsequent lectures in English entitled "Human flourishing and design for innovation", marketing professor Dr. Cheryl Nakata shared interesting scientific findings on the topic of innovation with her audience and also provided a context for the current corona crisis. What is innovation? What is it good for? What role does design play? These and other questions were discussed. He also explained that technology and resources should not be neglected, but that innovation is ultimately driven by people and that the best results can be achieved with teams that are mixed in terms of age, personality and skills.
Prof. Nakata gave an impressive account of how, in one project, 45 of her students in the premature infant ward of a local clinic applied their knowledge beyond any medical knowledge, but purely from a scientific innovation background, thus helping to optimize the processes on the ward, so that the medical director's initial scepticism turned into enthusiasm.
The international lecture series is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
