International Week 2022: International Get-Together with Focus on EDU@Home

After a virtual event and a one-year break, the annual International Week took place on site again this year at the UAS Technikum Wien. The focus of the week, with the theme Education@Home – Opportunities and Challenges in Teaching and Research, was the advancement of higher education institutions (HEIs) around the world in times of pandemic. Representatives of HEIs from all over the world met from May 16-18, 2022 to discuss the opportunities and challenges of this topic, to exchange best practice examples, and to establish and deepen contacts. In addition to partner institutions from the German speaking area, such as Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts, or Ulm University of Applied Sciences and Arts, representatives from Universidade de Tras- os Montes e Alto Douro, Lapland UAS, Reykjavik University, TU Delft, and Kettering University were among the guests.

After the opening of the event by Rector Sylvia Geyer, the first day was dominated by top-class key notes: Sylvia Lingo, Head of the Teaching and Learning Center, opened the discourse with her lecture on the future of learning from a holistic perspective, focusing on the 4 C’s of the 21st century: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication. Ekaterina Shpadareva from Edutech start up Mimo talked about the benefits of cohort-based learning as well as barriers to learning for adults. The key notes were concluded by Arjen Jansen from TU Delft together with Stefan Litzenberger, program director of the Bachelor’s Human Factors and Sports Engineering as well as the Master’s Sports Technology at the UAS Technikum Wien. They presented their project A4See (Alliance for Sports Engineering Education) and mainly dealt with the question of what remains of the implementation of a mobility project when mobility is not an option. The first day ended with a reception in the auditorium, where both content and contacts were further deepened.

The second day started in medias res with short presentations and discussions on the week’s topic. Martin Deinhofer, international coordinator of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering at UAS Technikum Wien, opened the day with a presentation of his project Study@home – Virtual Exchange by e-learning sharing, which launched in 2018.  The afternoon took the group to the Virtual Reality Playground in the 9th district, where different virtual worlds could be explored together.

The last day of the International Week 2022 was characterized by further short presentations, especially from the fields of Life Science Engineering and Industrial Engineering. Besides the presentation of the Erasmus+ Capacity Building Project EURYDICE by Walter Commerell from Ulm UAS, in which the UAS Technikum Wien is a project partner, Agnes Kriz, Head of the International Office, and Mohamed Aburaia from the competence center Digital Manufacturing, Automation & Robotics presented the first Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Program (BIP). One focus on Wednesday, after the hands-on experience on Tuesday, was the topic of Virtual Reality. Erson Halili from Lapland UAS presented the FrostBit Software Lab, currently the largest R&D unit within Lapland University of Applied Sciences and among the other UAS in Finland. Horst Orsolits and José Garcia Estrada from the Virtual Technologies & Sensor Systems competence center spoke about Extended Reality in Robotics Education. The closing event with the awarding of the certificates took place in a nice atmosphere at the Vineyard Zawodsky in the 19th district. In line with the visit to the vineyards of Vienna, our guests also received a specially labeled wine bottle as a farewell gift.

The International Week was held as a certified eco-event.