Towards innovation on computer science courses

Abstract

Technologies change very rapidly, and universities need to be increasingly connected to the needs of the industry. With the advent of industry 4.0, the transformations in curricula must be continuous. The current scholar must be a professional future who finds new solutions, who knows how to make a decision based on the data, and who can communicate with different areas. The insertion of entrepreneurship practices towards the development of innovative products in computer courses can academically boost the scholars' characteristics necessary to the today's world, such as teamwork, problem-solving, systemic vision, communication, protagonism, and creativity. A new approach that makes it possible to address the needs of the locality to the surroundings of the educational institution, to highlight the strengths of the scholars in terms of solving such demands, and to propose innovative works strongly linked to the local productive arrangement. The design of the approach follows an innovation framework proposed by Steinbeis University-SIBE, which expands and potentiates the phases of Design Thinking in a larger number of more detailed steps that guide well-defined activities. The results presented by the use of the approach shows that most of the work developed has the potential to become an innovation, which will help in local and regional development.