Solve It: Building Entrepreneurial Mindsets at Scale

Credit: University of Auckland

Universities worldwide are increasingly moving beyond their traditional teaching and learning boundaries to develop future-ready talent, for which core competencies include an entrepreneurial mindset, creativity, and problem-solving skills.

The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at the University of Auckland developed Solve It to address this challenge. This flagship program operates as a fast-paced, five-day innovation sprint during the mid-semester break every September.

Students from diverse academic backgrounds are divided into teams and tasked with solving real-world problem statements proposed by industry partners.

In 2025, 104 students participated in the immersion, with companies such as Samsung, AA Insurance, Permobil, and Eden Park each contributing practical challenges for teams to tackle.

"The whole program is based on design thinking and idea generation, with students presenting their projects to a panel of judges from our industry partners at the end," explains Darsel Keane, Director of the CIE, during the GFCC April Monthly Call. "It's really about delivering industry engagement and impact while advancing student development."

The impact of CIE's strategy through Solve It and other initiatives has been substantial. Since 2001, alumni have created 292 ventures and almost 4,000 jobs, and the university has raised $7.8 billion in venture capital.

Transforming the New Zealand Economy

The stakes of the CIE’s work extend well beyond the university. New Zealand faces a distinctive set of challenges that makes building an entrepreneurial culture a top priority. Situated in the Pacific Ocean, the country is geographically distant from major global markets with a domestic population of just five million. New Zealand companies cannot rely on local demand to scale — they must think globally from day one. Traditional industries such as dairy and tourism, while still fundamental for the country’s economy, are no longer sufficient to drive the kind of economic growth the country needs.

"The University has an ambition to be a fourth generation university and a global powerhouse of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship," says Darsel. “For New Zealand, that’s not optional, it’s essential. As a small, globally connected economy, we need to translate research into real-world impact and work closely with industry and communities to build the capabilities required to compete internationally.”

Technology has become the fastest-growing export sector, with several billion-dollar companies emerging over the past decade — proof that this ambition is achievable, but that it requires deliberate investment in talent and innovation capacity.

The Work of the CIE

The CIE is a learning environment open to all faculties at the University of Auckland that focuses on developing entrepreneurial mindsets and innovation capabilities. It operates around three pillars: a) developing people and learning; b) activating ventures and ecosystems; and c) embedding innovation and culture.

Over the years, the CIE has engaged more than 30,000 students, many of whom have gone on to become innovators and industry leaders.

The CIE was featured as a standout model for university-based innovation platform in the GFCC report Convergence and Circulation in 2016, which mapped the future of universities as economic growth engines.

How Solve It Works

Solve It directly addresses the first pillar by developing people through experiential learning and strengthening innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities.

During the five-day sprint students work together to tackle a real-world challenge posed by industry partners. Learning outcomes include exposure to entrepreneurial and design-thinking principles, prototyping fundamentals, and pitching skills. They also have the opportunity to collaborate, build relationships, and expand their professional networks.

For Darsel, the success of engaging with industry partners depends on clear alignment of expectations. "Some partners believe students are going to come up with something that can solve all of their problems," she explains. Over time, she has observed that organizations benefit primarily from gaining fresh perspectives and identifying emerging talent.

The Five-Day Sprint

• Day 1: Team formation and insight gathering

• Day 2: Design thinking — synthesizing insights to define the problem

• Day 3: Ideation — developing, prototyping, and testing solutions

• Day 4: Refining prototypes and solutions

• Day 5: Final pitching to judges

Cultivating Future Innovators Worldwide

By combining design thinking, rapid prototyping, and direct engagement with industry partners, Solve It not only enhances student development but also generates tangible ecosystem impact. Within the broader context of New Zealand’s ambition to transition toward a knowledge-based economy, programs like Solve It play a strategic role in cultivating innovation capacity, fostering industry-academia collaboration, and positioning the country as a competitive global hub for entrepreneurship and technology.

Solve It is one program at one university. But the model it represents — where students, industry, and national economic strategy converge around real problems — points to something larger. For universities willing to reimagine their role, the important question is not what they teach, but what they build — in their students, their ecosystems, and their economies.