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Published: 11 October 2024
Text: Anne-Marie Korseberg Stokke
Photo: Kaja Emilie Sivertsen Jensås
The premises of the student incubator Insj have now been renamed UiO iHub and will serve as a place where innovative students and partners can meet and collaborate.
“UiO iHub is a low-threshold offer where students from all faculties are welcome. In other words, if you are a student with an entrepreneurial spark, an innovative idea, or a student company in full swing – you are welcome to UiO iHub,” says Hilde Nebb, head of the UiO Growth House.
For the University of Oslo, it was natural to focus on student innovation at Oslo Science Park.
“We are here because this is the heart of the innovation ecosystem in Norway, with several incubators and hundreds of startups. Insj opened here six years ago, and we are now entering a new phase where these premises will become a gathering point for a variety of activities,” said UiO's Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation, Per Morten Sandset, at the opening of UiO iHub.
Among the activities that Hilde Nebb highlights are the Momentum internship program and the innovation program Co-Create.
“In Momentum, we collaborate with student innovation associations to facilitate meetings between students and companies that can offer summer jobs. Additionally, we cover half of the salary for a certain number of students in companies with fewer than ten employees.”
“Co-Create is an innovation program in collaboration with several other educational institutions. There have already been Design Thinking workshops, lectures, and a summer program in innovation,” Nebb adds.
Many of the activities at UiO related to student innovation are initiated and driven by the students themselves. In 2022, the Student Association for Pharmaceutical Innovation initiated an agreement with ShareLab, allowing students to work on innovative projects and learn new methods. The incubator Insj is also run by and for students and will continue its operations at UiO iHub.
“This milestone has been reached by the students themselves,” said Hilde Nebb in her opening speech, congratulating the students who have contributed.
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"The biological diversity of Earth is threatened. Understanding and preserving species will therefore be crucial for the survival and prosperity of humanity," says a professor at the University of Oslo. The Norwegian part of the global Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) is now gathering forces from all of academic Norway, as well as representatives from the business sector, to DNA sequence everything from ferns to bears.
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The coffee tables are made of pallets, and there are an above-average number of post-it notes in circulation when a group of students is gathered at Oslo Science Park for some "design thinking". Co-Create is a joint initiative by and for colleges and universities in the Oslo area where students are encouraged to solve real world problems through entrepreneurship and startups.
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