Lauttasaari High School students started their own mini-PDP (Product Development Project) course at Urban Mill. Andy from Design Factory and Natalie from Startup Sauna will run twice a month workshops at Urban Scene. The co-learning and co-design concept is the same as at the Design Factory for the university students. Two companies gave design challenges to students and we’ll see the results of their work at the PDP Gaala next spring.

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The gap between secondary schools and universities have been enlarging, especially today when the statistic shows that 65 % of students entering post-secondary school today have no idea what their future careers will entail, partly because many industries have been disrupted and new jobs will be created.

Design Factory and Startup Sauna, Urban Mill’s older brothers and neighbors have joined forces to try to bridge the gap for high school students. Together, they are working with Lauttasaaren Yhteiskoulu and have formulated a curriculum that ties together entrepreneurship and Product Development to give the students an opportunity to be creative, think outside the box and work on real industries projects.

Urban Mill hosted a session for these students on October 9th, and will host many more in the future.

“The space at Urban Mill is wonderful, it is rough, not new, and allows the creative juices to flow” says Andy Clutterbuck, Design Factory’s Coach and co-founder of this high school program.  “We know that innovation is not learned in a typical school classroom with row of desks, so open places like Urban Mill, Startup Sauna and Design Factory are crucial for these types of workshops.”

The other co-founder of the program is Natalie Gaudet from Startup Sauna. Together, they bring a great dynamic and different perspective to teach the high school students.

Throughout the academic year, these students will be working in teams and will be solving a problem that real companies have. The final projects will be showcased at Design Factory in April in a Gala.