Ella Paldam has been awarded an industrial postdoc from the Innovation Fund Denmark of DKKR 828,000 for the project: ‘When children and companies co-create: Learning and innovation.’ The project is co-funded by CoC Playful Minds in Billund where Ella will be employed for the next two years. Ella will be affiliated with the IMC, and she also collaborates with Langagerskolen in Viby J.

The aim of the project is to cultivate and develop the double potential for innovation and learning in co-creation between children and industry. Two objectives follow from this aim: 1) to raise the standards for user-led innovation in developing new products and services targeted children, and 2) to redefine the approach to learning in the education of the next generation of entrepreneurial and resourceful citizens. In the long run, these two objectives feed into one another, but in the short run, a tension exists between them: private sector business interests and children’s acquisition of life coping skills are not naturally compatible. The project explores and implements this tension to develop a model for intergenerational co-creation that takes co-creational innovation to the next level and meets the challenge of educating our children for the 21^st century. Through this project, CoC Playful Minds and the IMC will join forces to develop a model for intergenerational co-creation that gives children a new platform for expressing their voice.

Ella will take leave from her Carlsberg Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out the industrial postdoc.

Contact:

Postdoc Ella Paldam, Interacting Minds Centre, School of Culture and Society