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.