Dr. Lorena Escandon
Dr. Lorena Escandón is an intrapreneur, professor, creative facilitator, and speaker in innovation, creativity, and new product development.
She studied Information Technology at the University of Monterrey in Mexico, earned a master's degree in Entrepreneurship at the University of Lund in Sweden, and a Ph.D. in Innovation Management at the École de Technologie Supérieure in Montreal, Canada. Her research interests include: innovation, creativity, technology and entrepreneurship. She is trying to get people to work together and use technology to create new ideas and bring them to the market.
She has been teaching and developing new courses at the School of Creative industries in Toronto Metropolitan University: Leadership (new), Emerging Technologies (new), Trendwatching (new), Research Methods (re-designed).
As an intrapreneur, she has developed or co-developed and launched several programs. At TMU, she is the program coordinator of the Toy Invention course series, and coordinator of the Toronto portion of the MOISAC Summer School on Management of Creativity. Earlier, at ÉTS she was co-responsible and co-instructor of: the "International Summer School of Innovation and Technological design", and "Innovation et entrepreneuriat : Entreprendre sans idée ", and collaborated in the organization of a global innovation competition called "Les 24 heures de l’innovation" from 2013 to 2017.
While she launched a start-up in Monterrey, Mexico, she taught Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity courses at Universidad Regiomontana for five years, where she obtained a Teacher of Excellence award.
She speaks Spanish, English and French, loves post-its, travel, coffee and walking her dog.
Public Profiles:
- Member: Future Makers, DM@X Steering Committee, Creative Tech & AI Cluster, Creative Enterprise Cluster
- Committee member: CRI CLAC, MDI PhD Program Council
- Creativity
- Innovation
- New Technologies
- Trends
Dr. Escandón’s work sits at the intersection of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship, with a strong emphasis on applied methods for ideation, collaboration, and new product development. Her research explores how data exploration and digital tools can support early-stage design processes and creative problem-solving. She also leads and co-develops experiential learning programs such as design thinking workshops and innovation bootcamps at the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels, and has contributed to domestic and international initiatives that bridge academia and industry. She also conducts research on skills development in the creative industries, using job advertisements to identify emerging trends and evolving market needs.
- Dean's Service Award 2021
- Teacher of Excellence Award (Universidad Regiomontana, Mexico) 2010