A group of Yale students recently completed a nine-week extracurricular project to develop new beauty products in collaboration with L’Oréal. The project, known as the “Product Development & Innovation Intensive,” was organized under the auspices of the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design (CEID).
The exercise was designed to help participants learn about innovation in large organizations as well as to explore the product-development process, from inspiration to launch, along the way.
The project began in late September, when student teams met with chief instructor Seyma Aslan, Manager of Research & Innovation for L’Oréal USA. Aslan introduced the goals of the Intensive: to gain exposure to the industry, learn skills to thrive, create novel solutions, and network.
Though L’Oréal manufactures and markets products across the entire spectrum of the beauty industry, the Intensive teams were charged with focusing on innovations specific to the hair care and color categories.
Throughout the autumn the students met weekly as teams and biweekly with L’Oréal experts in research and innovation, operational design, business development and human resources. The L’Oréal representatives provided insights into everything from sustainability practices to equipment maintenance and hiring practices.
These discussions emphasized the transferability of key innovation skills: though L’Oréal is the largest cosmetics company in the world, its team’s insights were still applicable to the smaller-scale projects the students were working on within the walls of the CEID.
On November 28, the program’s seven teams presented these ideas in their pitches to a panel of judges from both Yale and L’Oréal.
As the final “pitch-off” concluded, the five women of Team Luna took home the first-place prize of $2,000 for their product “Ombré Your Way.” Team Bold won $1,600 for their curl-holding product, and Team Cut Above the Rest earned $1,200 for their hair health product.
Students who didn’t win prizes left with hands-on experience and valuable face time with industry experts, as well as a Certificate of Completion in Innovation and New Product Development.
Contact Michael C. Bingham at mbingham@newhavenbiz.com
