18 August 2019, Kathmandu
A Finland-based global innovation challenge platform called Demola has entered Nepal through a partnership with King’s College. A formal ceremony was organized in Kathmandu to mark the launch of the platform in Nepal. Annapurna Media Network, Young Innovations, City Planning Commission of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Katha Nepal and M&S Next Venture Corp signed the agreement to join Demola as the challenge partners. Narottam Aryal, the president of Kings college said that “Demola can be seen as a tool capable of stitching an existing gap between Nepali education institutions and companies as well as government and non-government organizations.” Bhattarai further added that being a globally recognized Finnish co-creation platform, Demola’s concept to nudge forward the culture of joint problem in Nepal can be expected.
Demola is an international innovation platform where educational institutions and leading companies work together in an 8-weeks long projects where students and company experts work jointly on an innovation challenge, as set by the company as well as organizations. Driven by the framework of open innovation and co-creation, University students from multidisciplinary fields and experts from companies collaborate to solve diverse sets of problems or challenges with innovative ideas. The collaboration will take place from problem identification phase to solution development phase. Similarly, two additional elements to the Demola project as Demola facilitators which will help to bring global knowledge and insights to overcome particular problem and universities to apply the tested and proven academic theories, to help Nepali businesses and organizations reach further heights.
18The Counselor at the Finnish Embassy in Nepal Kati Bhose stated that education-based research is required for solving modern time problems especially those faced by the industrial world. Bhose further added that new set of thinking is essential to solve such problems and that is possible only by the collaboration between the universities and the industrial sector. Addressing to the ceremony, Pekka Silven, Vice president of Demola said that the agreement has provided ways to strengthen international networks and bring co-creation tools to Nepali companies and society.
In addition to this, Demola brings fresh excitement of innovation and complex problem solving, synergy, collaboration, and productivity in the industry as well as academic curriculum and diminishes the chasm between the increasing demands of the market and stagnant academic curriculum that fails to keep up. Speaking as the chief guest of the ceremony, Dr. Rajan Bhattarai, Foreign Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister of Nepal stressed on that the fundamental question would be what kind of education can be applied to empower the society being more self-reliant and more innovative. Dr. Bhattarai further added that the prosperous Nepal would not be happen if there will be lacking of environment where each individual can engage in some sort of entrepreneurship. Thus, improving educational system and conducive business environment is crucial to compete the world. The program was developed in Finland and it currently runs in 17 countries, including Nepal. The program has already brought together over 50 universities and 750,000 students and the leading companies from around the world.
