N2T ‘Need to Tech discovery’ tool: enabling interaction with scientists in CBI students’ projects

The ‘Need to Tech discovery’ tool (N2T) is a design tool aimed at improving the interface between the scientific community and the market-driven innovation community. N2T embeds technological and scientific inputs into human-centered design processes. Once the design team has inputs from the human-centered research, it iteratively applies a divergence map and tech functional scenarios to interact with researchers. The output is a situated list of technologies that could be embedded in the solution concepts. N2T was developed using an Action Research Innovation Management Framework during four iterations of the Oper.CBI Open Innovation Program in connection with IdeaSquare, CERN. Results show better outcomes of the design team in exploring the potential applications of technologies and a higher engagement of scientists and researchers in the challenge domain.