Digital Changemaker

Through the “Digital Changemaker Program”, we break through the silos of individual courses of study, enable the development of digital competencies through peer learning between disciplines, bring practice-relevant problems into the classroom, and promote the emergence of socially acceptable digitization concepts for the participating project partners.

The “Digital Changemaker Program” brings together students of social science, technical and business subjects to develop use-oriented digitization concepts for these companies. One course with up to 50 participants is held each semester in collaboration with three project partners. The project partners are small and medium-sized enterprises and non-profit organizations that have identified a need for digitization. The program is divided into three phases: Research, Problem Immersion and Ideation.

In the Research phase, students look at the project partner’s industry and identify driving technological, social and economic trends with practical relevance over the next five years. In the Problem Immersion phase, students use user-centered methods to evaluate the project partner’s problem context, identify aspects that can be improved through digitization, and develop technology-based solutions. Finally, the ideation phase is used to concretize a selected solution and create an implementation plan. Interdisciplinary collaboration is a core element for the success of the projects, as students apply their complementary knowledge from the main courses to solve a real problem.