Purpose-driven Innovation 5 credits

The graveyard of failed ventures is full of products and services nobody wanted. Meanwhile, the problems that matter most—the ones standing between us and a regenerative, just world—go unsolved or get worse as markets flood with misguided solutions. Therefore, this course tackles entrepreneurship’s most critical question: How do you identify problems worth solving before you waste months or years building something that misses the mark? In this course, you will learn to combine discovery-first thinking with a (self-)critical mindset. On one hand, you will learn how to recognise, assess, and frame problems systematically through root cause analysis, interviewing, market sizing, and competitive landscape evaluation. On the other hand, we will expose you to a range of grand challenges that—if unresolved—might inhibit our future welfare. These challenges require a mindset that goes beyond spotting market gaps. One that is capable of connecting what’s disconnected to break the perpetual cycle of mindless innovation. In between these two extremes, you will be asked to position yourself, define what value means to you, and start developing an entrepreneurial identity. After completing this course, you will confidently identify challenges worth solving, analyse them, and define clear and distinct problem spaces that enable subsequent exploration of solutions. These capabilities position you to reduce entrepreneurial risk and increase your likelihood of building solutions that the world needs.