Workshops

By Anna Friesel

Special Session about STEMSOFT project

The project aims at preparing STEM candidates with non-technical skills such as critical thinking, ideageneration and interdisciplinary ways of working alongside their technical hard STEM skills. The consortiumcomprises different work cultures and training traditions and with input from international perspectivesthrough the range of associated partners.

Agenda for Special Session:

• Introduction to the project Presentation of the partners and their institutions
• Development and presentation of Competence Matrices and recognition of prior learning
• Target groups
• Presentation and examples of training programs based on OERs (Online Educational Resources)
• Online platform with Skillsbank
• Plans for the future development and use of the project’s results
• Questions and discussion

By Leandro Di Domenico, Head of International Relations chez Icam - Strasbourg-Europe Campus

I2E2 stands for; International, Innovation, Engineering & Entrepreneurship. The I2E2 Network is a network of multiple European universities in which these universities work together in a so-called I2E2 project. The I2E2 projects are initiated by the network members in a setting in which students work together on engineering challenges with a focus on international collaboration, innovation development and entrepreneurship. The projects have consistently demonstrated its potential to students in the development of innovation engineering competences in a cross-cultural setting. By the network defined subjects can tackle a broad variety of challenges facing our society, varying from the development of drones for natural disaster response to the reduction of single-use plastics for example. At the moment, the chairmanship of the network is situated in ICAM Strasbourg. Each year an international I2E2 symposium is organised in which participating students are brought together to present their project result to each other and an interesting audience. The next symposium will be organized by Hellenic Mediterranean University, Iraklion, Greece in Jan 2024.

In this workshop we will give you an insight into the network, experiences in international cooperation in innovation engineering, the 7-step collaboration method, Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP) from Erasmus+ and discussing forms of cooperation.

Please have also a look at our website : https://fontys.nl/International-Innovation-Engineering-and-Entrepreneurship-Network-I2E2.htm

By Thomas Woudsma, System Architect AI at Prodrive

Since the release of ChatGPT, a lot of public awareness has emerged about how AI technology will impact society. Continuously discussing these topics is crucial to grasp the opportunities as soon as possible while at the same time avoiding lagging behind if they are not used. In this session we want to talk about the opportunities and risks of AI in the context of education and industry, where both the R&D and application of new AI technology are in scope. We want to address how and where we should contribute to leading AI research and talk about how new technology should and should not be applied.

To set the premise, Prodrive Technologies will present their current application of AI technologies like the automated visual product inspection and the development of a smart question answering platform. For all AI technologies developed within Prodrive, students play a crucial role in contributing to these applications as they are the link between the industry and research done at universities. To give a broader overview, some literature and related work relevant for the innovation of educational programs and industrial processes is shared as well.

A diverse panel will then discuss several statements around these topics where interaction with the audience is highly encouraged! With this interactive session, we hope to create awareness and insight into how we should optimally use and avoid AI in these domains.

By Bram Cappers, Visualization Architect Postdoctoral researcher at TU/e

Data Science and Computer science are one of the most desirable fields currently in the job market. Because of this need, the expectations are often through the roof.  How do we prepare students for these demanding environments?  

As an TU/e alumni, I have experienced a similar journey from a research position in Academia to starting my own company in Industry. Both worlds have their own goals and stakeholders and education has the (nearly impossible) job is to prepare students for both ends. 

The goal of the workshop is to share personal experience of working with students both from an academic as well as a business perspective. We will identify the skills that we seek in a student company-wise and address some challenges we encounter with students from the current generation. In addition, we present an initiative that we have developed a program, in collaboration with the university, for students that aims to tighten the gap between both worlds. 

The workshop aims to address the following topics. 

• How do we prepare students better for an Industrial environment and to what extent should education adapt to this need?
• What skills should a student have to safely enter the market to what extent does this match in the curriculum?
• When is a student considered “customer-proof”?
• Is it practically feasible to guide students better on their journey (in Industry or Academia) given the current academic staff pressure?

Biography

For the last 5 years, Bram has been a founder of two software companies and is a part-time teacher Visual Analytics in the TU/e Mathematics & Computer Science Department. After finishing his master (with honors) in Computer Science he did a Phd at the TU/e in the area of data visualisation and anomaly detection. There he has developed techniques to discover advanced computer viruses in large data streams. Bram’s research has won several prizes in the area of real-time data analysis, entrepreneurship and data-science. With this knowledge he started 2 companies CodeNext21 and TIBO Energy were he deployed these techniques and made them available to different industries.