Academic and Administrative staff from IBC-M, University of Pristina and University of Prizren attended workshops held by hosting institution: University of Applied Sciences (FHS) Salzburg/ Austria during the week of 20-24 May.
The 4 days training started with the visit to the Campus Kuchl where Alexander Petutschnigg and Ulrike Szigeti presented an overview of the University. An interesting project, called YOHO project was presented by FHS students. Students of the university were given the opportunity to express their skills and design modern bunk beds for the YOHO Hostel in Salzburg.
Tuesday was dedicated to the visit to FHS Business Center. Learning more about the FHS Business Center was a highlight of the trip, as the main objective of the mobility is to learn about different experiences University partners have running their Business Centers and to understand possible models for T2P centres opened at Kosovo Partner institutions.
FHS Business Center is an example of practical approach on connection of the Institution to its students and industry. The most valuable activity was to see how FHS works with their students’ start-ups. Participants of the mobility had the opportunity to talk to the mentors of the startups, students engaged in projects and see their ongoing activities.
Wednesday’s agenda included an Experimental Business game, where participants of the mobility became part of student groups and played the game together with students. Each group had to choose a business idea and run it for the three years. The game was an outstanding example on experiential learning that supports the key concepts of Enterprise Education such as: Enterprise Capability, Financial Capability and Economic & Business Understanding.
Thursday’s activities started with the introduction of the 3D Printing with wood filaments, interesting samples and their appliance in the market were presented. Participants also had the chance to attend a lecture, Engineered Wood Products 2 by Marius Barbu, as well as exchange ideas and best practices used there during classes. An enjoyable part of the day was the practice example with wood products, Felix Prandl and his colleague Helmut Radauer demonstrated how a panel with bark material is pressed. Afterwards, Mario Morandini who competed bachelor’s degree in wood technology and wood construction at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences presented the project of natural drink coolers called “Barkinsulation”, an idea which combines the passion with the untapped potential of the bark. Their goal is to create an alternative to reduce and avoid the consumption of petroleum-based plastics.
This mobility exchange was made possible through the ‘Creating Theory to Practice Centres for Innovation and Employment’ project, which aims to improve the relevance of higher education for the labour market and society in Kosovo by creating sustainable models of interaction between universities and enterprises.