������

DigiEduHack happens simultaneously during 24 hours in Europe, Africa, Asia, South and North America, bringing participants together from all over the world. Universities, research institutions and other associations in most European countries and in Mexico, Canada, Russia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Israel, and Turkey, will all host their own DigiEduHack event. 

“During 24 hours, the innovators will take on challenges in various fields, ranging from learning experience to learning spaces and pedagogies, emerging technologies and data exploitation, access and availability. Each organization has chosen a challenge area that is pressing and relevant for them, with the aim of developing real-life solutions”, says Project Manager Ida Andersson at Aalto University, Finland, and continues: 

“We want to see fantastic, crazy, out of the box ideas as well as small but important improvements to current ways of utilizing digital tools in education. The best ideas will be rewarded at an international awards ceremony and the best team become EU’s Global Digital Education Ambassadors”. 

DigiEduHack global main event at Aalto

The global main event will take place at Aalto University in Finland, a pioneer within the field of Digital Education. Aalto University has invested a lot in digital education during the last few years, according to Professor Lauri Malmi: 

“We are constantly exploring novel online contents and pedagogies, such as educational videos, building content based on virtual reality and augmented reality, developing interactive online text books, and using automatic assessment of students’ submissions that include mathematical formulations, or computer programs. Moreover, games and gamification are used to support learning.  During the last three years, we have had more than 150 pilot projects, where courses have been totally or partially revised to include new types of online learning content and new pedagogical solutions.”

The key learning points from the global DigiEduHack events will be used as a basis for the new Digital Education Action Plan for Europe:

"We want to improve the use of technologies for teaching and learning, ensuring that everyone has the necessary digital skills and competences, exploiting data to the benefit of education. DigiEduHack is an innovative and great opportunity to reflect on where we stand and collect actionable ideas ensuring that digital technologies are used at their best", says Begona Arano, Head of Unit, Innovation and EIT, The Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture (DG EAC).

The sky is the limit

In virtual reality classrooms, medicine students can explore the human body from the inside, architecture students can visit the world's most fascinating buildings, while biology students can dive to the depths of the ocean. 

The aim of DigiEduHack is to explore what the future of learning will look like. Will students wear virtual reality headsets? Will teachers use Big Data to support learning? How can we use data to design smart campuses? And how can digital learning support a sustainable development?

“90 % of future jobs will require digital competency - still almost half of Europeans lack 
basic digital skills. In all stages of life, from school through to college and into the workplace, the key to success lies in acquiring new digital competencies”, says Line Gry Knudsen, Director of Education at EIT Climate KIC, one of the main partners behind DigiEduHack.

One of the hosting organizations is Artevelde University of Applied Sciences in Ghent, Belgium:
“We see many opportunities within the domain of the digital transformation of higher education. It would be great that one or more solutions result into further investment and the construction of specific prototypes”, says Dries Vanacker, Educational Developer, and continues: 

“I am really looking forward to spend the night in one our campuses. This in combination to great inspirational talks from professionals in the field will be a memorable experience for all participants. Yes, they might be tired at the end of the 24h hackathon, but we will have had lots of fun and interesting discussions and ideas to explore”.

DigiEduHack is an EIT initiative under the European Commission’s Digital Education Action Plan, led by EIT Climate-KIC and coordinated by Aalto University.
 

More information: