Winter School “Responsible Innovators of Tomorrow”

  Copyright: © Peter Winandy

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are at the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Achieving the 17 SDGs requires cross-disciplinary collaboration, in which universities can play a central role as drivers of innovation for sustainable development through research and student education.

To advance these developments through international and transdisciplinary teaching, the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) "Responsible Innovators of Tomorrow" is developed within the ENHANCE Alliance under the coordination of the RRI Hub until the end of 2022. ENHANCE is an alliance of seven technical universities in Europe and aims to drive responsible social transformation.

The Winter School "Responsible Innovators of Tomorrow" takes up the contents of the MOOC and practically builds on them. An anticipation phase will focus on ethics and gender and diversity. The anticipation phase will be based on the content of the MOOC and will involve academics from within and outside the university.

After the anticipation phase, students work on current challenges in the context of digitalization and artificial intelligence. Based on practical challenges in the areas of discrimination through machine learning, fairness aspects as well as the ethical use of artificial intelligence, the students develop socially innovative solutions in interdisciplinary teams. The challenges should be as practical as possible, which is why cooperation with external case providers such as NGOs or social enterprises/start-ups is planned. The theoretical knowledge acquired in the anticipation phase serves the students as a basis for the development of solutions. During the action phase, the students are supported in finding solutions through consultation/coaching sessions with the RRI Hub staff. With a view to developing socially innovative and sustainable innovations, the students then examine the solutions developed in terms of their feasibility and contribution to achieving the SDGs. At the end of the Winter School, the students present their work on the challenges and their reflections on feasibility and impact in a pitch. In addition to the Winter School participants, interested students and citizens of the city of Aachen are invited to attend. The Winter School will conclude with a joint reflection on the skills and competencies needed by tomorrow's responsible designers and how they can contribute to achieving the 17 SDGs.

Implementation period: March 06 - March 12, 2023

Number of participants: 30 students

Language: English