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Prof. Wim Van Petegem, Chrisje Haenen en Rudi Lenaerts
“Actually coaching this team was easy,”
explains Prof. Van Petegem. “We started
each day with a short stand-up meeting
with the team. Our main role as coaches
was to bring students in contact with
stakeholders in the field of education,
research and industry so that they could
get feedback for their ideas”.
“The multidisciplinarity in
the team proved to be a
main asset in coming up
with the challenge”.
Jorrit Willaert and Anirudh Pabba, two of
the team members, add: “The multidisciplinarity
in the team proved to be a
main asset in coming up with an approach
to the challenge. The mix of expertise in
our team with law (from Isidora Gonzalez
Rios, a third team member), science
(Anirudh) and engineering (Jorrit) turned
out to be very successful, and resulted in
a holistic experience.”
Roles
The roles in the team were clearly defined
in the first few days. Anirudh took the
responsibility as a project planner,
whereas Isidora worked on the legal and
juridical aspects and Jorrit was responsible
for the practical implementation of the
choices made. All their hard work
eventually resulted in a blueprint for a
customisable add-on for browsers to
protect the user’s digital rights. Needless
to say that this solution was highly
appreciated by all participants of the final
presentation at the end of the two weeks
challenge.
“I was pleasantly surprised by the
eagerness and the willingness of the team
to pick-up the challenge and to really
deliver a solution” adds Rudi Lenaerts,
“Moreover, working with an international
team (Anirudh is from India, Isidora from
Chile and Jorrit from Belgium) added an
extra very positive dimension to it”.
In total, UNA.TEN attracted more than
100 students who worked together in 19
teams, in this way paving the road for
challenge-based learning, not only in
times of virtual mobility, but maybe for the
future of higher education in Europe and
beyond.
Hilde Lauwereys
www.una-europa.eu
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