With respect to traditional winter schools, TOP STARS 2017 combines focus-lectures of academics and practitioners, project work, field and usability tests, customer validation work, field visits and socializing events. Focus is put on harmonizing the technical capacities with soft-skills such as: business project work, team building, (personal) networking, cultural exchange, knowledge on interaction between ethics and society and creation of a global awareness of societal and business trends.
In the school, students are confronted with participating stakeholders (companies and start-ups) to consider the sustainability and relevance of their ideas. The course emphasizes multidisciplinarity and draws attention on specific components related to; conceptualization of usability and technical realization; and commercialization (marketing plan and business realization) of their ideas. The applied approach is based on the following pillars:
Throughout the winter school, students will work in teams of 5-7 participants to craft and develop into project-ideas the solutions they have identified to address the technical problems presented to them. A selection of initial use-cases are planned to be provided in cooperation with partner companies participating in the winter school.
The whole initiative is valued 10 ECTS.