Ten Weeks of Intrapreneurship: A Look Inside the L’Oréal Product Development Intensive
The 10-week L’Oréal Product Development and Innovation Intensive — a collaboration between the L’Oréal Groupe, Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design, Greenberg Engineering Teaching Concourse, and Tsai CITY — first ran in 2018. Yale alum Dr. Seyma Aslan — Director of Research & Innovation at L’Oréal’s Skin Care Development Labs — started the program as a way of introducing more Yale scientists and STEM students to industry work. The idea was to bring a group of students together, present them with a challenge, and allow them to create a product. Experts from L’Oréal were involved at every stage of the program, from product ideation to marketing. At the end of the program, each group presented their product for a chance to start a patent process with L’Oréal.
In addition to patenting and gaining insight into the beauty industry, many participants obtained internships and full-time hiring opportunities with L’Oréal. Pull quote: “It is inspiring that SEAS Alum Dr. Seyma Aslan reached back to Yale in 2018 to offer an innovative chemical engineering product development program for students from all backgrounds at Yale. This partnership was one of the inaugural activities of President Salovey’s Innovation Corridor — comprising CEID, GETC and Tsai CITY — to bring Yale together and create innovations that extend beyond campus.The fact that Yale-developed projects are being explored as commercial products is inspiring.” — Vince Wilczynski, Director of CEID
Because of COVID-19, the second iteration of the program couldn’t take place until Fall 2021. But this time, Dr. Aslan brought her L’Oréal co-worker and winning participant of the 2018 program — Dr. Stephanie Laga — to co-direct the program with her. Tsai CITY’s Senior Managing Director, Kassie Tucker, declared Stephanie’s return as a “beautiful continuation” and testament to the intensive’s prior success. And as a former participant, Stephanie was really excited to co-lead last year’s intensive.
“I’ve always appreciated having strong mentors throughout college, grad school, and even now at L’Oréal, which is why I feel invested in being a mentor for this program. It is rewarding to share the connection between beauty and science through the development process.” — Dr. Stephanie Laga
Not only was she leading the planning process, but Stephanie became a mentor to students passionate about product development, students experiencing many of the same things she did not too long ago. From coordinating lab visits to providing feedback at all stages, Stephanie was there for every team, every step of the way.
A New and Improved Program
The overall structure for the 2021 intensive was very similar to 2018’s: a 10-week program where participants — randomly grouped into teams of 4–5 people — developed a product and presented it to a panel of L’Oréal leaders. According to Kassie Tucker, participants in both iterations of the program enjoyed working with people they wouldn’t normally meet or work with at Yale. This key aspect of the intensive really helped simulate the experience of being an “intrapreneur” in a corporate setting. 2021’s program also continued to leverage the operational partnership between Tsai CITY and the School of Engineering & Applied Science’s Greenberg Engineering Teaching Concourse as well as the Center for Engineering Innovation and Design, allowing students to work on their physical projects with direct assistance from SEAS staff. The goal of the intensive remained the same: at the end of the program, the top 3 teams were awarded $1,000-$2,500 grants and a potential to patent their product with L’Oréal.
While the 2018 program solely focused on hair, however, last year’s scope of projects expanded to include hair and skin. With interactive, science-based sessions on both scopes, students received a deeper background on the formulation of products and more one-on-one time with L’Oréal speakers. The hair and skin sessions were conducted virtually to provide a realistic lab experience of formulation while still adhering to COVID-19 safety precautions. The other four sessions, however, were conducted in person, making for a hybrid-like model common to programming across campus this year.
Challenge, Collaboration, and Creativity: 2021 Cohort Reflections
While STEM focused, the program managed to attract a cohort of students across Yale schools, from different backgrounds, experiences, and interests. A member of 2021’s first place team, grad student Tanya Townsend (CHEM, ’22) loved that her teammates were all from a different background, each bringing unique skills and perspectives to the process. She enjoyed doing the lab work and the process of creating her team’s product — a tinted sunscreen formulation with sustainable ingredients — because it let her to apply her skills in a new way. But the program gave a great overview of the industry, allowing her to learn more about areas she was less familiar with like developing and marketing. For Tanya, the program not only resulted in a successful product and potential patent, but as a 5th year grad student, it confirmed her desire to pursue a career where she can apply her scientific knowledge to consumer products.
Much like Tanya, Brady Rowe (MPH, ’21) initially applied to the intensive to explore his interest in science and industry, more specifically the overlap between toxicology and cosmetics. He’s always enjoyed innovating so this program was an opportunity to challenge himself and prove that he could come up with a product that a big name brand would want. Given that his team won second place and could receive a patent for their skincare app, he certainly proved himself right! For students like Brady, having a planned and structured environment for innovation was a new, sometimes challenging, but nonetheless helpful way of approaching product development.
“This whole process highlighted the possibility of generating creativity within certain constraints.” — Brady Rowe, MPH ‘21
Speaking with 2021’s cohort made it very clear that the program was, again, a success. Grad student Melissa Lu (SOM ’22) even described it as the best program she’s ever participated in. Melissa started her own skincare brand in China before coming to Yale and had prior entrepreneurship experience. She applied after seeing the program on Tsai CITY’s newsletter, and shortly after found herself, as an SOM student, on a team full of Chemistry grad students. But Melissa loved that the random nature of the groups allowed her to collaborate with Chem students, meet L’Oréal professionals, and have mentors like Kassie Tucker and Stephanie Laga. After 10 weeks of product development, workshops, and close collaboration with professional teams, Melissa walked away from the program equipped with a clear vision of what she can work on the next time she decides to develop a product.
“The intensive allowed me to learn from my past experiences and I hope to apply the industry-know how, process development, and soft-skills I gained to future ventures.” — Melissa Lu, SOM ‘22
Looking Ahead
The L’Oréal Product Development and Innovation Intensive brought together Tsai CITY’s core pillars for innovation: creativity, collaboration, mentorship, and knowledge-building. While Tsai CITY collaborated with partners across Yale and outside of it to make this program happen, students got to work with each other and with various mentors. Along the way, every person involved gained insight into the process of planning, or participating in, a product development intensive. The end goal was to have a prototype, but the entire intensive was truly about fully immersing students in the experience, allowing them to enjoy the process. Moving forward, all collaborators hope to host the program again in 202, reaching even more students at Yale and promote a model of innovation that inspires product development even beyond Yale’s campus.
“Our innovation class is getting better each year and delivers at unprecedented levels. Students are learning how to innovate, grow, and challenge their unquestioned assumptions which prepares them for what will come ahead in the real world. The program is not only recognized by our students and the two institutions (Yale & L’Oréal), at least five other companies from various industries implement our program as a model.” — Dr. Seyma Aslan
