Sharks Den Day 2
By Aliza Wajih
Hi everyone! This is an update to our Shark’s Den event, which is the first attempt to support start-up business and bring people of different qualities together in one room to come with ideas that will change the world.
This week we started by a crash course to TinkerCAD by Vincent Khau. The lesson soon transformed into a game of start-up charades! It challenged our abilities to communicate ideas, work collaboratively and most of all test our patience. The idea of the first challenge was to bring together two member of the team the CEO and CMO and have them look at a picture, they then had to describe the model in front of them to their CTO who would have to design it using Tinker CAD. The idea on this exercise was to demonstrate the importance of good communication in a team, as well as the difficulty of conveying your ideas to another person.
For the next hour the teams worked on an ideas they are passionate about, or as Paul puts it their “Gazillion Dollar Idea” . With such a diverse crowd we had teams looking at ergonomic issues where a design for customised mouse for gamers was introduced. The idea of the fancy doors that was carried from last week were made better. Environmental issues were also tackled by proposing indoor compactor bins!
Team #1 presenting the indoor compactor bin
All ideas were brilliant and were pitched at the end of the day in a presentation by the CEO and a draft using TinkerCAD . This session was the followed by the “pivot” where CEO’s went against each other to defend their ideas and design. In the end it was established that as a start-up business most businesses have to pivot their idea meaning they have to take a different look at their business model and really evaluate if their product is viable and will survive in the market. So, sad face, no one won the gazillion dollar this time because the teams have to rethink their designs and ideas, but they are all as determined as ever to really go out there and bring home the prize!
Stay tuned till next week!
