ConnectING 13

FACULTY WORLDWIDE
UNA.TEN….
A LIVING LAB CHALLENGE
FOR NEW FORMATS
IN EDUCATION AND MOBILITY
On 8th May, UNA EUROPA concluded UNA.TEN – “Transform
Emergency Now! 10 days for change”. UNA.TEN was set up
as a pan-European student hackathon to tackle challenges in
COVID19 post-emergency times. Based on an open innovation
design process, student teams from all participating UNA
EUROPA universities joined forces with local partners to
find solutions to four specific COVID-related challenges:
(1) Rethinking entertainment and culture, (2) Securing privacy
and preventing misconceptions in a digital world, (3) Ensuring
traveller safety, and (4) Avoiding food waste.
UNA EUROPA is a unique alliance of
eight European research universities,
with KU Leuven as one of
the leading members. Funded among the
first “European University” pilot projects
selected by the European Commission in
June 2019, UNA EUROPA’s 1Europe
project will establish a Europe-wide living
lab for testing Joint Innovative Formats for
education and mobility.
One of KU Leuven’s four student teams
in the UNA.TEN challenge was set up by
KU Leuven KICK in collaboration with
Technovation Hub of the Faculty of
Engineering Technology.
Online digital consent
Chrisje Haenen, Executive Committee
Member of Technovation Hub, together
with the coaches Rudi Lenaerts (Laurion
BV) and Prof. Wim Van Petegem, joined
forces to support the student team on the
“online digital consent” theme. The team
worked on the question of “How to protect
our privacy and help fight dangers, fears,
and misconceptions in a digital world?”
The student team worked ten days
intensively and in an agile way on this
challenge, with sprint meetings every day
and four intermediate milestone meetings
where they met with other teams in
Bologna and in Krakow working on the
same challenge. A Slack and Google
Drive environment ensured a fluent
sharing of insights and materials. This
resulted in a new, challenge-based type
of collaboration with virtual mobility.
36