Throughout June and July Una Europa offered students a unique experience with Una.Futura, tackling real-life challenges in cross-European teams. Set up as an open innovation design process, Una.Futura took students on a journey, developing solutions to real-life challenges arising from the digital revolution.
Teamed up with facilitators and experts, groups of students from across the Una universities worked on jointly finding solutions to six key challenges: digital empowerment, digital citizenship, digital economy, augmented human, cyber threats and mental well-being and social relations in the digital world.
In this sixth episode of the Una Europa podcast we hear from two students who participated in Una.Futura, Pradeep Kumar and Matilda (Lily) Anderson, as well as associate professor Dr Mateusz Lewandowski who was involved in the organisation of the event and also facilitated one of the student teams. Our speakers reflect on their experiences of Una.Futura, what they learned and why Una Europa students should engage with these opportunities for transnational collaborative work offered by the alliance.
" One of the biggest things that I gained... was allowing myself the space to think outside of the box, to take calculated risks with all these different ideas. I think all of those things are incredibly relevant to both my professional and personal life. "
Lily Anderson from University of Edinburgh on takeaways from Una.Futura
" I think it’s a fantastic learning experience. You get to know a lot about other people, about other cultures even – if this could be expanded to a more global scale. You learn a lot about how people think and it just helps you expand as a person as well. "
Pradeep Kumar from KU Leuven on what he learned from his Una.Futura experience
About the speakers
Pradeep Kumar is an Electronics-IT engineering student at KU Leuven who wants to be a data-driven and creative problem solver. As an adept communicator and learner with excellent interpersonal skills, Pradeep seeks different perspectives to drive forward the development of products as a part of a team.
Matilda (Lily) Anderson is currently studying law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She is interested in international justice, human rights and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. She is a member of the Ethical Global Research team based at The University of Edinburgh and Head of Teams Development at the Edinburgh International Justice Initiative.
Dr Mateusz Lewandowski is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Affairs of the Jagiellonian University. He is an academic focused on design approaches to public management and performance. He teaches management, design thinking and cooperation. In Una.Futura he was responsible for preparing the outline of the design process, coordination of that process and also facilitating one of the student teams as a moderator.
" Una.Futura was an excellent opportunity to build a community of students even doctoral students and professors and experience the university of the future by collaboratively designing solutions to real life problems. "
Dr Mateusz Lewandowski from Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie on how Una.Futura benefitted its student participants
