Fostering innovation in engineering undergraduate courses in Brazil

It is highlighted the vital importance of exposing engineering students to practical challenges at an earlier stage of their academic life in terms of motivation, thus contributing to decrease drop-outs, besides enhancing self-reliance and fostering creativity. We discuss different strategies adopted by teams of students to find out a problem and to translate it in terms of a feasible solution. Future developments and unfolding challenges are also addressed to provide a big picture of the complexities involved in fostering innovative thinking in academia.