Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) is the top-ranked public university in Ecuador, with approximately 8,400 undergraduate students enrolled in 35 programs across 8 faculties and six areas of knowledge. Seventy percent of students are in STEM programs. i3lab, ESPOL’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, aims to foster an entrepreneurial culture, skills, and talent to create value through innovation—its mantra is “Create value now.” i3lab operates in three areas: Education, Start-Ups, and Outreach. Design Thinking is embedded in the curriculum; all freshmen take a course applying it to real-life problems, and its impact on student skills has been published in academic journals. Advanced courses, including the Capstone course, also apply this approach. i3lab provides Design Thinking training for faculty, professionals, and companies and hosts the annual “i3week,” featuring talks, competitions, mentoring, and workshops open to students, faculty, researchers, and the public.

www.i3lab.espol.edu.ec.