Product innovation in Asia

Innovative product development is crucial in today’s globally competitive economic environment. Literature shows that great innovations can result from immersion, placing people in a new cultural environment, to generate new ideas from concept to commercialization.  A “regard neuf” at ordinary things, observations on how people from another country live their day-to-day life can generate a multitude of ideas for new products and services, thus our product development class travelled to Hong Kong. The learning environment was further enhanced, perhaps challenged, by splitting the class into multidisciplinary teams to foster the required skills and collaborative expertise to develop the concepts into products. This paper provides the rationale for the course along with the specifics of implementation and assessment of learning by the students.