Making it Matter
Everything is invented, and every invention is brought to life by a group of innovators who analyze, imagine, try, fail, persist, and eventually succeed. We believe that anyone can learn to do the same – you just need the right tools, mindsets, and methodologies.
Inworks is an innovation initiative of the University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus. A home for creators, thinkers, designers, and makers, we’re a collaborative community of learners and leaders committed to solving humanity’s most pressing problems. In our two state-of-the-art prototyping labs, we draw on expertise from many disciplines to synthesize unique solutions to real-world challenges. At Inworks, we learn and teach through making, but we don’t just make things – we make them matter.
Inworks Innovation Formula
Radical Interdisciplinarity
In an age where everything is connected to everything else, the knowledge needed to solve a problem is often to be found in a completely different domain than the problem itself. But there’s more to it. Collaborating with others might give you the key information you’re missing, but the real impact happens when diverse ways of thinking collide, giving rise to genuinely new ideas.
Design Thinking
Design thinking is less about thinking and more about doing. Practicing this approach means developing solutions to complex problems using equal parts empathy and evidence, creativity and practicality to match human need with feasibility.
Computational Thinking
There’s way more to it than writing code. Many problems can be solved (or the solutions enhanced) using digital technology. Computational thinking allows us to create human artifacts of every kind – structures, art, music, medicine, aircraft, entertainment, entire worlds of imagination – using computing as the instrument of creation.
Disruptive Innovation
Most innovations are incremental improvements to existing systems. A few innovations change the value proposition to such an extent that they disrupt an entire market. Both types are necessary, and the fusion of interdisciplinary collaboration, design, and computational thinking brings them within reach.
Making it Count
News + Updates
Featured Fall 2018 Course: Synthetic Biology for Innovators
Synthetic biology allows us to engineer new biological systems and redesign existing biological components by integrating aspects of biotechnology, evolutionary and molecular biology, systems biology, computer engineering, computational biology, and genetic engineering. Advancement in technological tools and techniques make this material accessible to motivated individuals from many disciplines, so no biology background is required
Design | Make HS Summer Camp
Inworks partnered with the College of Arts & Media’s LYNX Camps to offer a Design | Make camp for high school students. During the week long camp, students designed and made robotic sculptures!
Along the way they created pop-up paper art, built paper circuits, learned to 3D print, and explored mechanics by creating sculptures that move on their own. Students also programed Arduino microcontrollers to incorporate LEDs, sensors, and other electronics into their creations!