CLIK
CLIK (Connection Lab & Innovation Kitchen) is an experimental educational laboratory promoted by the Interdepartmental Laboratory of Technological Transfer (LabTT) in December 2017.
At CLIK students can experiment and put into practice what they have learnt during their lectures, in an informal environment that promotes a spirit of creativity and collaboration.
The activities within CLIK involve as mentors both individuals from within the university, like researchers, and expert individuals from various professional sectors outside it: to share their experiences and skills with the students, in a space that may allow the young ones to stimulate their creativity and enable the encounter with different knowhows, as ingredients that are the foundation of innovation and of potential entrepreneurial projects.
By providing state-of-the-art tools for maker and prototyping activities, CLIK offers the chance to promote educational projects and organize student competitions (Challenge@PoliTo).
CLIK is a channel open to society and industry, with which it can generate synergy and develop projects linked to the territory. The “challenge-driven” approach acts as a stimulus for the labʼs activity and it was chosen because on one side it responds to the needs for innovation that companies are facing in the incipient Industry 4.0, and on the other, it helps to drive the birth of start-ups with a technological DNA.
Story
Clik was inaugurated in December 2017 with the “Lab Assistant” hackathon: in two days the students had to face the challenge of designing and creating the CLIK virtual assistant, with which to interact with the voice. Since then, other hackathons have been carried out, up to the actual challenges lasting between 7 days and 5 months.
Starting from October 2019 the challenges are defined Challenge @ PoliTo and have been redesigned and assimilated to an exam: they are reserved for Master’s degree students, they take place in parallel to the academic semesters (October-January and March-June), with a duration of 14 weeks, and can give the right to 8 CFU, which can be curricular or extra-curricular, depending on the theme of the challenge. With the first semester of the A.Y. 2020-21 the Challenge@PoliTo may be proposed by external companies (Challenge@PoliTo_By Firms) or by the students themselves (Challenge@PoliTo_By Students)
Team
What people say (Really!)
Why they want to recommend others to participate in the Challenge@CLIK?
It is one of the best experience at Politecnico!
It is an amazing experience!!!
Because even if sometimes in the team there are some problems I had a good time working with people with different backgrounds.
I think these experiences are the best connections the university can build between students and working/entrepreneurial world, not comparable with exams.
I think that is a great opportunity to grow as a person and as a team member, an opportunity to learn by doing and to face the real word outside university.
Because I think it is something different and outside the normal university schemes but at the same time useful because it already places you in a working context where it is increasingly necessary to interface with areas that do not belong to your know-how.
Because the challenge gives the possibility to develop a product, starting from our knowledge, in which we are basically free to exploit our ideas. This is also done in a multidisciplinary environment, very beneficial to start feeling how it will be to work in a company.
The Challenges of the PoliTo give the possibility to understand how is working in a team with different backgrounds, how to manage the time to achieve the deadlines and the importance of the communication between the team members and the mentors. The most important reason is that it makes you understand that if you have an idea you can implement it from zero and do it.