DesignLab UTwente

Have you made a prototype at or in collaboration with DesignLab and would like to showcase your project?

The AI Parade is an initiative from the Netherlands AI Coalition’s Culture and Media working group and Human Centric AI building block. Over the course of eighteen months, the AI Parade is travelling to eighteen libraries across the country, offering debates, workshops and exhibitions. It involves a variety of engaging activities that can reach a broad target audience.

On 15th September 2022, Senior researcher, Karolina La Fors moderated a panel discussion with children, scientists and researchers at Stadkamer Zwolle about the importance of nurturing transdiciplarinity and facilitating co-creational spaces in AI processes of development.

Entering DesignLab, you don’t know where to look. There’s too much happening at once. The bright hall is filled with all sorts of prototypes. Groups of students are standing in front of robots, taking notes and observing the robots as they move and talk. Other students are hunched over their laptops or wearing VR headsets. Today, however, it’s especially crowded. The reason is a course on Digital Transformation by Apeldoorn Leergang, a cooperation between Achmea, Belastingdienst and UT. Although the course has existed for a few years now, it’s the first time that part of it is held here, at DesignLab.

In 2020, Miriam Iliohan and together with three other faculty members of Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) created the Faculty Innovation Fellows program. In this two-year program, educators from across the globe work to design unique projects that enhance the innovation ecosystems at their schools and help students gain vital real-world skills and mindsets. In addition to Miriam's role as a founding member of the program, she is also a coach and mentor for program candidates, beginning with the first cohort in Fall 2020.

During the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) program’s March 2022 Silicon Valley Meetup, the members of this first cohort were named official Faculty Innovation Fellows, thanks to Miriam's guidance and leadership. She helped to create and facilitate a full-day event for these new faculty Fellows as part of the summit. They shared their projects with one another as well as members of the extended community, including university presidents. The work with the Faculty Innovation Fellows program didn’t end there; Miriam is currently coaching international members of the second and third cohorts together with colleagues Nick Swayne, Ilya Avdeev and Mary Raber.