{"id":21277,"date":"2014-07-21T15:53:27","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T19:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/designlife\/?p=1804"},"modified":"2014-07-21T15:53:27","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T19:53:27","slug":"meet-christian-holljes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/2014\/07\/21\/meet-christian-holljes\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Christian H\u00f6lljes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask Christian H\u00f6lljes,\u201cwho is the fastest man in the world?\u201d and he replies, \u201cWe don\u2019t know\u2026he never ran.\u201d H\u00f6lljes attests that the fastest man never ran because he never had the opportunity, permission, mentorship or the inclination to try. This same sentiment holds true for the next great entrepreneur\u2019s groundbreaking design, service, new method or process.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHow does one foster, support, or teach to the \u201cunknown\u201d? H\u00f6lljes asks. That\u2019s one of the unique challenges of building a healthy, thriving incubator at NC State. The Chancellor\u2019s Faculty Excellence Program cluster hire in Innovation + Design has been in the pipeline for several years, led by the efforts of professors Jon Bohlmann and John McCreery from the Poole College of Management and Haig Khachatoorian and Percy Hooper from the College of Design. The Poole College will soon add another expert with whom H\u00f6lljes will work directly to identify joint endeavors combining innovation, design, thinking, and sustainable business management practices. Multidisciplinary project courses are important for the cluster, helping link students to business and real-world applications. \u201cThis collaboration could lead to new joint courses taught between the colleges as well as conferences, seminars, workshops, business incubators and accelerators, new venture funds and business mentoring, even start-up competitions,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A Man with a Vision<\/strong><\/p>\n

H\u00f6lljes\u2019 enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and creativity is infectious. He has played an integral role in creating and placing over 40 toy products within the U.S. market alone. Many won awards and generated millions of retail dollars. H\u00f6lljes\/Newgent owns the patents for the concept behind the Smart Cycle,™\u00a0Fisher-Price\u2019s award-winning toy cycle that combines aerobic activity and interactive learning. Fisher-Price and Mattel voted H\u00f6lljes the \u201c2008 Inventor of the Year.\u201d Parents found the products to have the perfect combination for their children \u2013 learning while playing and being active.<\/p>\n

Building Entrepreneurs<\/strong><\/p>\n

H\u00f6lljes isn\u2019t new to teaching. At Apple, he became a QuickTime™\u00a0team member and professor at the Future Apple University. At Duke, he worked in conjunction with Duke professors to develop a course integrating studies in biomechanics, fine arts and mechanical engineering. H\u00f6lljes calls his first design course \u201cMake\/Believe,\u201d where students will develop a hypothetical company and go through the necessary steps required in order to launch it. This will be a groundbreaking course for students who seek the professional skills required to launch their idea\/business after graduating. \u201cDesign students should learn about structuring a company, business\/marketing plans, liability, partnerships, copyright infringement, taxes and other hidden consequences,\u201d H\u00f6lljes says.<\/p>\n

He is already thinking big \u2014 developing partners to help co-fund and mentor worthwhile ventures within the College and the Poole College of Management, where he\u2019ll also teach. He intends to develop course structures that support the development of major companies such as SAS, Cree, Lulu Press and Red Hat \u2013 all of which originated at NC State. \u201cDo the students even know they have a fire in them? Do they know if they put on those running shoes, they may be the fastest kid in the world? It\u2019s exciting, isn\u2019t it? I hope to nurture that.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information about the Chancellor\u2019s Faculty Excellence program, click here.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"Ask Christian H\u00f6lljes,\u201cwho is the fastest man in the world?\u201d and he replies, \u201cWe don\u2019t know\u2026he never ran.\u201d H\u00f6lljes attests that the fastest man never ran because he never had the opportunity, permission, mentorship or the inclination to try. This same sentiment holds true for the next great entrepreneur\u2019s groundbreaking design, service, new method or process.\u00a0<\/em>\n\n\u201cHow does one foster, support, or teach to the \u201cunknown\u201d? H\u00f6lljes asks. That\u2019s one of the unique challenges of building a healthy, thriving incubator at NC State. The Chancellor\u2019s Faculty Excellence Program cluster hire in Innovation + Design has been in the pipeline for several years, led by the efforts of professors Jon Bohlmann and John McCreery from the Poole College of Management and Haig Khachatoorian and Percy Hooper from the College of Design. The Poole College will soon add another expert with whom H\u00f6lljes will work directly to identify joint endeavors combining innovation, design, thinking, and sustainable business management practices. Multidisciplinary project courses are important for the cluster, helping link students to business and real-world applications. \u201cThis collaboration could lead to new joint courses taught between the colleges as well as conferences, seminars, workshops, business incubators and accelerators, new venture funds and business mentoring, even start-up competitions,\u201d he says.\n\nA Man with a Vision<\/strong>\n\nH\u00f6lljes\u2019 enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and creativity is infectious. He has played an integral role in creating and placing over 40 toy products within the U.S. market alone. Many won awards and generated millions of retail dollars. H\u00f6lljes\/Newgent owns the patents for the concept behind the Smart Cycle,™\u00a0Fisher-Price\u2019s award-winning toy cycle that combines aerobic activity and interactive learning. Fisher-Price and Mattel voted H\u00f6lljes the \u201c2008 Inventor of the Year.\u201d Parents found the products to have the perfect combination for their children \u2013 learning while playing and being active.\n\nBuilding Entrepreneurs<\/strong>\n\nH\u00f6lljes isn\u2019t new to teaching. At Apple, he became a QuickTime™\u00a0team member and professor at the Future Apple University. At Duke, he worked in conjunction with Duke professors to develop a course integrating studies in biomechanics, fine arts and mechanical engineering. H\u00f6lljes calls his first design course \u201cMake\/Believe,\u201d where students will develop a hypothetical company and go through the necessary steps required in order to launch it. This will be a groundbreaking course for students who seek the professional skills required to launch their idea\/business after graduating. \u201cDesign students should learn about structuring a company, business\/marketing plans, liability, partnerships, copyright infringement, taxes and other hidden consequences,\u201d H\u00f6lljes says.\n\nHe is already thinking big \u2014 developing partners to help co-fund and mentor worthwhile ventures within the College and the Poole College of Management, where he\u2019ll also teach. He intends to develop course structures that support the development of major companies such as SAS, Cree, Lulu Press and Red Hat \u2013 all of which originated at NC State. \u201cDo the students even know they have a fire in them? Do they know if they put on those running shoes, they may be the fastest kid in the world? It\u2019s exciting, isn\u2019t it? I hope to nurture that.\u201d\n\nFor more information about the Chancellor\u2019s Faculty Excellence program, click here.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christian H\u00f6lljes joins the College of Design to help achieve multidisciplinary goals in effort to link students to business and real-world applications, and to identify joint endeavors combining innovation, design, thinking, and sustainable business management practices. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":21377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-21277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-industrial-design"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}