Intel Invent 50 boot camp: A guiding hand for budding inventors

In commemoration of Singapore’s Golden Jubilee and the 50th anniversary of Moore’s Law, Intel organized Invent 50, a competition designed to encourage students from local universities and polytechnics to come up with innovative solutions to problems in everyday life.

The response to Invent 50 was overwhelmingly positive, with almost 150 applicants, far exceeding Intel's expectations. Who said our education system leaves no space for innovation and enterprise?

That wide field has now been sorted down to the most promising prospects, and on a weekend last month, Intel held a two-day boot camp for the top 18 finalists. We were there for a first-hand experience of the day’s events, which featured talks by Intel leaders, its partner in innovation Padang & Co, and experts from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

Invention is about far more than just the technical know-how to create a working product. It involves the passion and ability to identify societal problems, and an incisive ability to visualize a solution.

The two-day boot camp was designed to help the finalists think through their ideas, offer guidance for the entire discovery and ideation phase, and provide some hands-on time for participants to work through their ideas. As the torchbearer of the spirit of Moore’s Law and unceasing innovation and progress, it only seems fitting that Intel would be the one to provide budding inventors with the tools to bring their ideas to fruition.

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Starting off the day was Sumeet Verma, Head, Higher Education and Entrepreneurship, South Asia, Intel, who spoke about the four key focus areas that Invent 50 was centered around – Smart Nation, Smart Home, Smart Mobility, and Smart Health. This paralleled the Singapore government’s own push to help Singapore advance as a Smart Nation, where technology and IT would improve productivity and help solve problems.

Next up was Anuj Dua, Director of Marketing, Intel Asia Pacific and Japan, who introduced the finalists to illustrious inventors whose inventions – despite sometimes unlikely beginnings – helped change the world.

There was King C. Gillette, whose contribution to the world was nothing so high-tech as semiconductors or transistors. Instead, it was the considerably low-brow safety razor, a particular version of which eventually spawned a multi-billion dollar company now owned by Proctor & Gamble.

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For someone a little more accessible to today’s world of high technology, Anuj cited Robert Noyce, a co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. Noyce was a pioneer in integrated circuit (IC) design, and when asked what he would do if he were Emperor of the US, Noyce reportedly said that he would prepare the next-generation to flourish in a high-tech age. And from what we’d seen so far, we couldn’t help but feel that that was just what Intel was doing.

Anuj then talked about Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors on ICs would double every two years. And with the steady shrinking of manufacturing process nodes over the years, Anuj upheld Intel as being responsible for setting the pace of innovation over the past half a century.

He also fielded a query from team SmartTrans (one of the finalist teams involved in the boot camp), which posed a fairly pertinent question: What happens after 7nm? Anuj responded with a tantalizingly open-ended answer. Since it was impossible to shrink chips indefinitely, the next big leap in computing architectures would be left up to the next generation of inventors to define, an unmistakeable shoutout to the roomful of young minds.

Indeed, there were plenty of calls to action to kickstart changes with new ideas and inventions.

There were even lofty motivational quotes thrown in, such as the following:

Helping Ideas Take Shape

Adam Lyle, Executive Chairman at Padang & Co, then took to the floor to walk the finalists through the process of shaping their ideas and evaluating their viability. Of course, there was a healthy dose of pragmatism infused through all the optimism (note the caveat in parentheses in the slide below). Not all ideas succeed, but a rigorous thought process can help maximize the chances of doing so.

The finalists were introduced to two different approaches to their ideas – Design Thinking and Lean Startup methodologies.

Design Thinking is all about developing effective, human-centric designs to solve complex problems. Someone following this method would attempt to empathize with people facing a particular problem, define and articulate it, and then devise a solution (with plenty of brainstorming and prototyping along the way!).

On the other hand, the Lean Startup method adopts a more business-oriented vision right from the start. It’s similar to Design Thinking in that the ability to identify, articulate, and formulate solutions are still key, but the aim to create a viable business that will fit the market permeates all the steps. These tend to give rise to small, nimble outfits which are able to quickly pivot and change direction if an idea turns out to be a bad fit for the market.

But it wasn’t all just talk about theory. There was a fair bit of spontaneity thrown in, and Lyle suddenly called on all the finalists to stand up. He posed a series of questions to them, starting off with the following: Who has thought about their project for more than two weeks? Those who hadn’t would then sit down, and the intention was to help the finalists think about the questions that would be crucial to helping them better articulate and visualize their solutions.

Next, finalists were provided with sheets of A3 paper to provide a brief sketch of their projects. Don’t be fooled. This exercise was by no means simple, and as we walked around, we could see the different project groups huddled together and talking intently, clearly deep in thought.

Organizers were also on hand to allow students to bounce ideas off them and clarify any doubts.

Groups then had to stick their outlines onto the walls. We also couldn’t help but notice students making the rounds of the room to survey what other groups had put up. Scoping out the competition perhaps? Let’s not forget that there’s a S$10,000 cash prize for the winning team here.

After everyone had settled down, Padang & Co’s Lyle returned to the front of the room to show a clip of Timothy Prestero at a TED event. Among the various nuggets of wisdom he dropped along the way were soundbites like this one: There’s no such thing as dumb users, only dumb products. Now that’s an exhortation for the groups to step up their game!

This was followed by a brief segment to prod students into thinking more critically about their projects.

There were also tips on how to get into the head of customers and see things from their perspective.

Then it was time for more group activities, but with things switched up. Students were split up into two large groups, consisting of four smaller groups each. Each of the larger groups would work in their own room, and each student was assigned a random number from 1 to 4, which would determine their team members. This was a chance to work with students from outside their group and expose themselves to fresh ideas.

They were tasked with identifying problems in the following focus areas – Smart Nation, Smart Home, Smart Mobility, and Smart Health. It was a bustle of activity as they put their thinking caps on and wrote potential problems down on post-it notes. These then went up onto their respective sheets of paper.

The two larger groups then swapped rooms to see if their counterparts had come up with similar problems.

Then it was time to regroup in their original teams. Each team now had to pair up with another team and explain the problem they wanted to solve. The point was not to give away any details of the proposed solution and just focus on the problem first.

This involved a lengthy exercise of stepping into users’ shoes by breaking down their problems into a three-section (User Mindset, User Actions, and User Problems) flowchart of sorts.

That’s a lot of post-its. Looks like it’s not a simple matter to get into the heads of users after all!

With that out of the way, there was the sobering prospect of evaluating their solution with a critical eye. There are supposedly two types of solutions – a painkiller and a multi-vitamin (no prizes for guessing which is the more potent, and hence more effective one!). Ideally, their solutions should solve a serious problem, instead of just serving as a nice convenience.

Students were also introduced to something called a Lean Canvas, a one-page tool to guide them toward creating a product that would fit a market need.

The Internet of Things and other… Things

After breaking for lunch, it was time to get into the technical details. Professor Jamadagni from the IISc talked about the various applications of the Internet of Things (IoT). Many of the proposed solutions involved IoT and other connected devices, so this was very relevant indeed.

IoT devices play crucial roles in transport information systems and tracking of vehicle fleets.

They even have more mundane uses such as sensing the liquid level in a covered coffee cup.

Rounding off, Professor Jamadagni had one key message above all: The future will be one where a convergence of technologies and infrastructures reigns.

Students then split into two rooms again, where they were encouraged to get their hands dirty in tinkering with either the Intel RealSense 3D camera or the Intel Edison micro computer.

In one room, students intending to use the RealSense 3D camera in their projects were introduced to the capabilities of the camera. Just last month, Intel and Razer even announced a Razer-branded camera based on Intel's technology. But with advanced gesture and facial recognition abilities and more, RealSense 3D can be used for more than just gaming, and many of the finalists' are finding that it is a key tool to help solve real-world problems. For instance, it could be used to track crowds and enable better crowd management on trains and other public spaces.

Did you know the RealSense camera shares some similarities with the Xbox Kinect?

They look like they’re having fun with its advanced face-detection technology.

Each group was also provided with an Intel RealSense Developer Kit to tinker around with. In case you're wondering, this thing is currently only available via reservation on Intel's website. Talk about the perks of being a finalist!

Next door, students were poring over the tiny Edison computer.

To be specific, they were provided with the Intel Edison Kit for Arduino, which comes with a breakout board and the postage stamp-sized Edison module.

They were guided through the basics of setting up the device, such as how to get it connected to a Wi-Fi network.

The Edison kit is intended to make it easier for developers to create and prototype wearables and IoT devices, but to our untrained eyes, this certainly looks quite intimidating!

Either way, they look like they know what they’re doing.

Students were given more than a couple of hours to play around with the RealSense 3D camera and the Edison board, quickly getting a headstart on developing a working prototype of their products.

Just to recap, all prototypes must be completed by end November, and the final judging event and award ceremony will take place in early December. To be exact, judgement day is on 5th December. That’s actually not a lot of time, which explains the intense focus we saw all around!

If you'd like to find out more about the individual teams, here are tables with all 18 teams and short descriptions of their projects. We’ve also grouped them according to the problems they’re intended to solve for better clarity. Which of these teams would bag the top prize? Stay tuned for our report in December when we attend the final judging event!

Smart Nation
 

Smart Home
 

Smart Mobility
 

Smart Health
 

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