UTS:Hatchery

Imagine being invited by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) to change how they do business. That’s the task being set out for a group of UTS students with a thirst for entrepreneurship.

The Hatchery is a distinctive extra-curricular program offered to students in all faculties at UTS. It gives students the start-up skills and education they need to launch themselves as the entrepreneurs of the future.

This semester both the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and CBA have jumped on board as case studies for the Hatchery participants.

Program Designer and Facilitator Nathan Baird facilities the program and guides the students through workshops and master classes over the 15-week course.

Tida Tippapart. Photographer: Avalon Dennis

He says, "The students have to identify what a user problem is and also why it has been so hard to solve. They come up with opportunities to solve their problem space, then test it and re-iterate the idea. It’s amazing to see; the walls are covered with ideas."

“This semester we've had the opportunity to work with the ABC and CBA,” adds the Hatchery Community Manager Tida Tippapart. “They both delivered a brief or a challenge that students can work on. The CBA and the ABC get to see how our students unpack a very large issue and the different steps, approaches and perspectives they can take on that.”

The Hatchery is housed in a collaborative workspace in the basement of building U in Ultimo. The purpose-built space reflects the Hatchery’s unique approach to teaching. Students are encouraged to brainstorm uninhibitedly on the whiteboard wall, move furniture for team discussions and construct the space to work both collaboratively and independently at different times.

The program also incorporates formal didactic teaching styles to introduce new concepts and debrief on groups’ experiences, as well as encouraging the students to undertake field research outside of program hours.

PhD candidate Catherine Raffaele participated in the Hatchery pilot program in the first semester of 2015. She has since helped plan the second iteration, which now incorporates innovation-focused workshops run by UTS academics from a range of faculties.

Nathan Baird (left) addressing Hatchery students. Photo supplied by the Hatchery

“People are standing rather than sitting down and actually work off the walls,” she says. “Most of it's really interactive, or active, so you can see all the Post-it notes and the writing on the wall as the participants brainstorm new ideas.”

While the ‘digital natives’ who come through university this decade may be familiar with the rapid pace of change in the world, universities need to equip them with foundation skills to enable them to be agile and productive in the ‘disrupted’ economy.

A report by the Foundation for Young Australians found that 70 per cent of young Australians’ first jobs will either look very different or be completely lost in the next 10 to 15 years.

UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Corporate Services) Anne Dwyer supports the need for entrepreneurial skills to be fostered at university.

"We know that our graduates aren't going to follow the traditional career paths. Many UTS graduates will make their own jobs," says Dwyer, pointing to one of the reasons for the creation of the Hatchery program. It is the next step in the UTS vision for meaningful, practical industry engagement.

Tippapart says approaching industry engagement in a new way was one of the fundamental elements to its development.

"We had to ask, how could you integrate a program that was innovative and try to instil an entrepreneurial spirit within the students, but also pull in industry in a really innovative way that wasn't just 'here's an internship good luck with it’.”

Catherine Raffaele (left) with other Hatchery students. Photo supplied by the Hatchery

Baird is quick to commend the students who choose to undertake the Hatchery program in their own time. "The students are here because they are passionate about entrepreneurship. There are no credit points for this.”

Says Tippapart, “I think the Hatchery speaks to that ground swell of cross-pollination and collaboration at UTS. We get to work with such a range of students from business through to commerce, communications, IT and engineering and having that neutral space and being that Switzerland is kind of to our advantage.”

Business student Sufeyan Sawal is participating in the Hatchery this semester. He says the program is looking beyond developing basic business skills.

“There were a few students that initially thought it was about how to start a business or how to get an ABN, but it’s actually not that. It’s about being able to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and develop those skills that are required to break into the market.”

First-year student and Hatchery graduate Fleur Combridge says the Hatchery exposed her to new ways of thinking. "As one of the younger members of the Hatchery, it was great to interact with a variety of people and gain not only greater inter-personal skills, but understand how people at different points in life viewed and attempted to solve problems.”

Tippapart agrees. She believes the Hatchery program exemplifies a distinctly UTS-approach to problem solving in the real world.

“What I think sets UTS apart is that it is about instilling a completely different way of thinking and stuff that you can do – you know lo-fi and on the fly – it’s not about having the machinery there to expand that. It’s about really thinking and changing the way that you think.”

The program is aiming to be agile in its delivery, and embody the design-thinking skills it aims to teach.

“It’s very experimental and very agile, we are learning as we are going,” says Raffaele. “It’s still in the process of developing and we are constantly taking student feedback to make this better. We want to make sure that the program is co-created by the students.”

To find out more about the Hatchery and how to participate, visit hatchery.uts.edu.au or email hatchery@uts.edu.au