By Jon Gorey
noteworthy
A new partnership is forging connections between Sawyer Business School students, innovative Swiss startups, and MBA students from the School of Management Fribourg in Switzerland. What began as a virtual collaboration during the pandemic—with Swiss and Suffolk students navigating time-zone differences and cultural nuances to help Swiss entrepreneurs expand into the US—picked up steam this April, when a group of Swiss MBA students visited Boston and joined in Suffolk’s first-ever design-a-thon. “For 12 hours, students got together and worked on a problem for a local not-for-profit, the Northeast Arc,” says Shari Worthington, associate director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and associate professor of practice.
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“It’s really exciting for us, because the Swiss economy is an incredibly dynamic one.”
– Carlos Rufín
Photographs Courtesy of Suffolk University Center for Entrepreneurship
| Fall 2022
The Northeast Arc, which helps provide jobs, training, and other support for people with disabilities, explained their challenge to the students: Many of their clients can work recaning wicker chairs but get discouraged by the difficulty of the task. Could they create a tool to make the job easier?
After watching the process in action, mixed teams of Swiss and Suffolk students got to work designing prototypes. Twelve hours later, the teams presented their creations to the nonprofit. “The winner designed a glove that would help better grip the material as the chair is being woven, and 3D-printed a model of it from the makerspace,” Worthington says. They received prize money to fund production of the new tool.
Plans are now in the works for Suffolk students to visit Switzerland next year for an immersive travel seminar that would include similar workshops and site visits to some of the world’s most renowned companies. “It’s really exciting for us, because the Swiss economy is an incredibly dynamic one,” says Carlos Rufín, director of international engagement at the Sawyer Business School. “I think this will create a lot of great opportunities for our students.”