Rural Innovation Camp
The main objective of the project is to develop organizational innovation in agricultural businesses of Sardinia.
The project proposes to realize an entrepreneurial “contamination” path addressed to agricultural companies that aim to develop organizational, technological and business models innovations.
In a perspective of a knowledge co-construction, companies will have the opportunity to rethink to their organizational models in order to looking for new business opportunities through a path which includes workshops that will involve researchers, startuppers.
For each company a team constituted by the entrepreneur, researchers and startuppers will work to identify the solution to the proposed problems and extend, through a process of organizational creativity, the business opportunities.
The project is the result of a consolidated collaboration between partners and was born as a consequence of the detected need reported by Coldiretti, on behalf of the affiliate companies, but above all it is emerged from the agricultural companies themselves during the meeting held throughout the Sardinian territory.
During these meetings, the owners of the involved companies, have expressed the problems they notice in the management of their organization. All the problems detected present a common factor, i.e. the necessity of an organizational renewal that allows the company to answer to the needs of a competitive and constantly evolving market and especially the need to react quickly to requests.
The ongoing health emergency itself highlights the necessity of a rapid reorganization of the companies and the need to adequate fast to the external requests.
The proposed project is born from the requirement shown by the companies themselves and it has been constructed collectively in order to be able to conjugate the necessities emerged with the organizational and logistic need of the companies themselves.
The project aims to support the organizational change of the companies operating in Sardinia throughout the sharing of the Lean startup, Agile and Customer development methodology and because of its characteristics it is a transversal action adequate to all the companies that operate in the sector independently from the typology of the products on which they are specialized.
The Lean startup methodology
The workshops will be developed with the involvement of venture capitalists, will necessarily have an operational and concrete shape, and will focus on sharing the Lean startup, Agile and Customer development methodology.
The Lean Startup is one of the most important methodology that aims to assist entrepreneurs in innovation-oriented initiatives.
The methodology focuses on learning from failure and suggests a set of generic practices to validate the business model elements using rapid and continuous iterative processes.
The entrepreneur will have to put effort into a systematic path made by falsifiable hypothesis to be tested through the first versions of the products, almost scientific experiments in which the feedback helps entrepreneurs to understand if they should persevere with that business model, abandon it completely or modify it.
The application of these concepts within business life create a preliminary organizational innovation and necessary for the proposed contamination path.
The co-creation approach
The interaction path has been designed according to the theoretical principles and the guidelines of the value co-creation.
The knowledge present within the different involved figures can mix in a unexpectable way and foster creative solutions in the organizational field.
The path is configured as a shared growth process in which the organizational innovations can emerge because of the commitment of all actors. Some examples of innovation could be referred to the adoption of a new business model of the company, the organizational rethinking of the management of the generational transition, the implementation of circular economy models and processes, the building of a business ecosystem.
Multidisciplinary team will be set up characterized by a high level of interactivity, deep engagement, shared learning, willingness to interact and co-create value and communication in which different actors will be present:
COMPANIES will propose their own innovation project to researchers and startuppers and create a new ad hoc one.
RESEARCHERS will share with company the academic knowledge and through a “framing” process the experiences gained in multidisciplinary research areas.
STARTUPPERS who will share creativity and flexibility and will make available their insights and experiences that will serve as a starting point to outline the innovation paths, will stimulate different point of views on the same problem.
All, in a perspective of a co-creation of value, will have the opportunity to offer and acquire knowledge with the common objective to foster the shared growth.
Mentee becomes mentor
The companies involved will be accompanied throughout all the path and when they have absorbed and used the shared knowledge to the point where they can teach, they will be able to help other companies grow.
When the experience is used and shared again, it creates a legacy that will grow, transform and evolve step by step that it is shared and refine over and over.
This is a crucial point on the planning of the succession, the company involved will be able to become a Mentor of a company that is interested to undergo a path on business innovation.
In the American startups world, the inexperience of founders shown in the delicate phase of the project implementation, often lead to the failure of the project.
So, it is why the mentorship, i.e. the influence, guidance or direction given by a mentor startup is increasingly considered a fundamental component to build the success of a startup.
The Mentor is a professional who the shared competencies, experiences and sometimes of his/her own network of people creates synergies and value for the company facilitating their growth.
In this project, the company involved which becomes an innovative company represents a strategic guidance to set the innovation path in a new company. In particular, it will share its experience, suggest the skills to develop, help to acquire of knowledge, create value and indicate how to develop an innovation in a complete and efficient way.