Ateneo Innovation Center with Rags2Riches
The low cost LED (Light emitting diode) project headed by Paul Cabacungan that the Ateneo Innovation Center started last year has grown into something bigger with Information Design students working together with ECE students creating a paper chandelier. Now the Ateneo Innovation Center and Rags2Riches Inc. are now collaborating in order to create the Ateneo Design Center where Information Design students can work side by side with Engineers, Chemists and Programmers in creating new kick-ass products.
This center would provide Information Design students a place to learn more about science and technology and incorporate them to their design and for Engineers a place to learn more about asthetics and design. One of Apple's secrets of success is how they allow Engineers and Designers to work together in teams in designing and producing their products compared to other departamentalized companies (Design Department and R&D Labs) and the Ateneo Innovation Center aims to copy this formula in establishing the Ateneo Design Center.
This center would then be a place for raw materials experts to go to and share their techniques and know-how and for students to unleash their untapped creative potential. Aside from this this center would help designers and engineers patent thier designs/products and if ever a company would like to purchase a design/product by the Ateneo Design Center the designers and engineers would get paid (through royalties or lumpsum).
ARTillery members (The Home Organization of the Information Design Students), Renzy Ramirez , Gamo Tuaño, Mj Gacho, Louis Ong, Samantha Lorraine Chan & Jonty, have also met with the Ateneo Innovation Center in order to discuss what they think about the Ateneo Design Center. The students on their own then invited Father Javellanas the director of the Fine Arts Department into the Ateneo Innovation Center in order to talk about establishing the Ateneo Design Center. After the meeting, Father Javellanas agreed to be the faculty on the Fine Arts to provide "adult supervision" to the center with Greg Tangonan, the director of the Innovation Center, as his counter part for the Engineers.
The Ateneo Design Center would be closely linked to the new Ateneo Design Thinking Center by the SOH Sanggu representatives and would be the two centers that would spearhead the spread of design in Ateneo. The Ateneo Design Center would be the lab and the Ateneo Design Thinking Center the action and problem solving group. The synergy of mutli-disciplinary collaboration of the SOH (School of Humanitiew) and the SOSE (School of Science and Engineering) would give Ateneo a big innovation push turning Ateneo the Innovation Center of the Philippines.
