Preparing refugees for an entrepreneurial future. Monitoring campus roads’ health. Organizing a multi-day democracy. Within the Living Smart Campus programme of the University of Twente, eight new projects will start.
Living Smart Campus is a programme exploiting all possibilities of the campus as a ‘living lab’: it is a compact society that can serve as a test case for the ‘Smart Cities’ of the future. Early 2016, six pilot projects where of which some are still running, like projects on crowd monitoring and health sensing. A new round of 18 proposal now led to eight new projects.
Refugee entrepreneurs
Juan Jauregui Becker
Enschede Refugees Entrepreneurial Initiative. For refugees with the ambition to become an entrepreneur, there’s no true support framework in The Netherlands. Becoming an entrepreneur, though, is one of the opportunities to take an initiative. University of Twente and Kennispark will support this, together with the existing programme DELITELABS. In this five week programma, refugees find out if they have an entrepreneurial ‘mindset’. During the six month EREI programme, they will then get support and the possibility to work on prototypes in UT’s DesignLab. By including at least 25 percent of Dutch starters in the group, interaction is possible. UT scientists also see it as a research project, for finding out the value creation by social entrepreneurs.
Celebrating democracy
Bas Denters
Twentement. A two-day democracy festival like the one organized in Denmark every year (Folkemødet, Bornholm), welcoming tens of thousands of visitors. Twentement will be a festival with debates and lots of other acitivities not only showing the importance but also the fun of democracy. The central theme will be ‘blended democracy’ with a mix of live debates and social media interaction. During the event, also experiments with data monitoring of the crowd take place. Twentement is planned to be held at the Roombeek part of Enschede, close to the university campus.
Asphalt road health
Seirgei Miller
Health condition monitoring system. Inside a number of campus asphalt roads, optical fibres and sensors will be installed to monitor the roads’ condition and the need of maintenance. In earlier experiments, the speed of the machines, the temperature and the mixture were measured, providing researchers with data on possible weak spots in the road. Experiments on campus roads are a bit easier than on public roads 'outside'. It is possible, for example, to use a maintance moment to introduce new sensors.
Responsibly fast-forward
Michiel Heldeweg
Responsible experimentation. Starting new experiments on the campus, can be done by saying ‘try first and ask for forgiveness later’. In some situations, no specific rules are present. Don’t wait for this, get started and fast-forward: is that a responsible way of involving issues like privacy, safety and security. Or is it better to create a rules framework in a top-down way? This is what specialists in law and public governance want to find out, thus also helping other project partners. A special status for the campus grounds might result in a special ‘experimental license’, for experiments that are not allowed outside the campus yet.
Increase resilience
Thomas van Rompay
Digitalizing nature to increase resilience. Nature is beneficial to our health and creativity: it involves space and tranquility and also has a touch of mystery. People fulfilling creative tasks, do better in natural surroundings. Simulating nature during stressful situations in e.g. a hospital, will make patients feel more relaxed. Walking a virtual reality path in the woods during waiting or surgery, proves to be work very well. What if we use this for making our own students and employees more resilient and less susceptible to work stress? This is a project by the new Tech4People Lab.
Vacation days for societal impact
Djoerd Hiemstra, Mariëlle Winkler, Joe Laufer, Susanne de Gooijer
UT employees feeling a social responsibility to e.g. teach the underprivileged, start a buddy project or help in an unverdeveloped country, don’t always have enough vacation days to do this all by themselves. But what if the whole UT community donates some days, will it be possible for the individual to use some months from this ‘pool’? This is good for the employee, good for the societal impact of the university and good for society as a whole.
Improving liveability on the campus,
Alberto Martinetti
UTMaintain. An online platform at which maintance issues can easily be reported, will help improve liveability on campus. At a glance, the request status and repair planning can be seen on the platform. This improves involvement of campus residents with their surroundings: the dorms, buildings and paths they bike on. At the same time, it will probably speed up requests.
Solar powered e-bikes
Angèle Reinders
What will be a stimulus to the UT community to take the bike to work? Will an e-bike help? Or even a solar-powered one? Several scenarios will be tested, including a solar charging station at home, a bigger one at the university and even e-bikes equipped with solar cells themselves? By letting user panels use these three options for a while, new input will be generated for a sustainable mobility policy at UT.
