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Roskilde Festival as Living Lab in engineering education Authors: Lasse Skovgaard Jensen, MSc, PhD, DTU Entrepreneurship, DTU. Birgitte Rasmussen, MSc, PhD, Roskilde Festival. Tore Vind Jensen, Journalist, DTU
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PREFACE Giving young people a voice, a space to develop and the courage to engage and make a difference is a core value of Roskilde Festival – whether we are addressing music, art, activism, or education. It’s about supporting and cultivating upcoming talent and their communities. Further, we have the ambition to contribute to a sustainable future. This is the motivation for our collaboration with The Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Roskilde Festival is one of the biggest temporary cities in the world, and the infrastructure is a unique Living Laboratory for experiments and implementation of new engineering solutions. For the past ten years, we have invited students to work with engineering challenges in a cross-institutional partnership. More than 850 students have performed around 180 projects that have created an impact at the festival and other places. The projects have provided learnings and capacity building to the students, some have directly affected our practices at Roskilde Festival, and several projects have grown beyond our institutional borders with impact in society through new student-driven start-ups.
Many people at Roskilde Festival and DTU have contributed during the years, and have a share in this successful partnership. In particular, the strong support and enthusiasm from Martin Vigild, previous Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Student Affairs at DTU, has been paramount for this partnership to flourish. We are excited about the years to come and committed to further build on our lessons learned from the first ten years. Through Roskilde Festival, we want to support young people who seek to create a positive change in society - by bringing people together in new communities. Our Living Laboratory provides a platform around music, arts and activism. Here guests, volunteers and engineering students can encourage each other to be even more creative and ingenious. It is part of the Roskilde Festival DNA to support sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurship in a broader social perspective. The future is formed in the way we as young people are shaped, and in the way, young people shape their world. Creating learning environments to empower young people and their ability to take part in society is paramount to Roskilde Festival as well as DTU.
Christina Bilde Spokeswoman Roskilde Festival
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1. Introduction For the past ten years, The Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the music and art festival, Roskilde Festival (RF), have invited students to work with innovation and entrepreneurship in a cross-institutional partnership. The infrastructure of a large music and art festival with a strong international brand is an optimal playground for implementing and testing engineering solutions. It is also an opportunity for students to experience first-hand how users interact with new engineering solutions or business ideas. Here, we present how DTU and RF collaborate through a diversity of Living Lab student-driven projects. Since large-scale festivals require an array of professional skills, including several engineering disciplines, the collaboration framework is a definite asset in CDIO based learning and a very fertile venue for student entrepreneurship activities. The partnership supports the interests of a festival with a strong commitment to social responsibility and empowerment of their audience. We hope that our findings will serve as inspiration for other institutions with similar interests.
2. The university and the festival DTU is an international elite technical university offering engineering education to around 12.000 students from 102 countries covering a broad palette of engineering disciplines (17 BEng, 20 BSc Eng and 31 MSc Eng). Staff is about 6000 employees, out of these 20% PhD students. In 2019, DTU had externally financed research activities of EUR 261 M. DTU prides itself of an entrepreneurial mind-set among staff and students launching 76 new start-ups in 2019. In 2021, Roskilde Festival is celebrating its 50th edition (RF cancelled in 2020 because of the corona-virus outbreak). During its operation, the festival area temporarily becomes the fourth largest city in Denmark, population: 130.000. The festival site is open for visitors for eight days at the beginning of July is among the largest music and art festivals in Northern Europe. Most of the audience and volunteers camp in specific camping areas. The building of the festival site, the camping areas and most of the necessary infrastructure begin anew every year. RF employs only about 70 full-time staff making it heavily dependent on volunteers. While 1000 volunteers are working all year round, this number rises to about 31.000 volunteers during the festival. Roskilde Festival sells 80.000 full tickets and 20.000 single-day tickets every year. Roskilde Festival is 100 % non-profit. All profits are donated to social and cultural charities by the Roskilde Festival Charity Society.
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3. Background The DTU/RF partnership started in 2010 as a student-driven initiative. Since then, there has been a keen interest from students to participate, and survey results show that the majority will recommend fellow students to join the partnership. The overall goal is to establish a flexible and attractive Living Lab environment challenging the students in innovative thinking and engineering work. More than 850 students have participated until 2019. From 2013 to 2019, the partnership has included students from 27 university programs and around 180 student projects. The festival attracts entrepreneurial-minded students, and so far, 14 projects have resulted in student-driven start-ups of which about half are still active. We have learned that the unique needs of the festival and its audience allow the students to innovate for niche markets that are often very difficult to penetrate. Student activities must contribute to the fulfilment of institutional strategies. A key point of high importance is the strategic success criteria for both institutions.
OVERVIEW OF STRATEGIC SUCCESS CRITERIA FOR DTU AND RF RESPECTIVELY Technical University of Denmark
Roskilde Festival
• The student projects shall fulfil learning objectives in engineering education, and the students shall obtain ECTS credits. (European Credit Transfer System). • The student projects focusing innovation and entrepreneurship have high priority, and the students are encouraged to establish start-ups. • The RF/DTU partnership shall be an offer to all study programs at DTU. • The students shall learn to understand the importance of customer requirements.
• RF wants to offer learning environments for students in general (not only DTU) as part of their work to empower young people and urge them to take part in society. • A significant portion of student projects shall contribute to fulfilling the sustainability strategy. • RF hopes to support entrepreneurship and start-ups in a broader social perspective. The festival has the ambition to be a test facility for new prototypes that will be relevant not only for RF but for other events and activities (e.g. alternative settlements, temporary relief settlements).
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4. Setting the living Living Lab scene Innovation and entrepreneurship are high on the political and educational agenda as these competencies are essential for finding sustainable and socially robust solutions to future challenges. Establishing Living Lab learning environments, which provides real-life problems in an attractive context for young people, promotes entrepreneurial competencies in education. Living Labs is a way to engage private companies, citizens, researchers, and public organizations in mutually beneficial learning and experimentation. DTU has innovation as a top strategic priority and strives to develop an innovative culture among the students. Essential activities are the development of courses and establishing a variety of learning environments with external partners to solve real-life engineering problems. The temporary festival event serves as a Living Lab with a variety of engineering challenges including an understanding of the importance of customer requirements, for example, acoustics, waste, sanitation, infrastructure, interactive art installations and crowd safety solutions. A crowd of 130.000 enthusiastic, mostly young people, on a minimal space, makes up the festival. Consequently, there is severe stress on the infrastructure; they are using it in a hard, challenging and sometimes untraditional manner. Further, RF is a chaotic environment to manoeuvre, and these extreme conditions make the festival an excellent playground to test and experiment on new products and services. If a prototype survives the conditions at RF, it might have enough relevance and robustness for further development and testing. We discuss the lessons learned to address the essential role of facilitating and supporting a cross-institutional platform for Living Lab learning. To the best of our knowledge, the outlined setup is novel as a Living Lab learning environment in engineering education. An aerial view of the festival and its surroundings. The orange contour encircles the 400.000 m2 festival site. In the background, the city of Roskilde.
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In 2019, Roskilde Festival was used as a test environment for small and mobile wind turbines intended for use in rural areas of developing countries
5. Empirical data The principal authors are engaged in the partnership as coordinators and facilitators. We are participants, storytellers and researchers at the same time. We base our work on: • Analysis of data and results from student projects aggregated from 2010 until 2019, including topics, study lines and the number of students. • Surveys among students participating in the partnership addressing the evaluation of support and results. • A survey among start-up teams addressing the support for student-driven start-ups. • Assessment of the institutional setup supporting and facilitating the platform. Evaluation of lessons learned has been on-going joint activities from 2010 until today.
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6. Facilitating and supporting the partnership The partnership consists of two diverse and large organizations made up of a diversity of complementary communities of practice (CoP) with a rather large replacement of community members. In addition, the scope of the partnership is challenging and resource-demanding. Hence, there is a strong need for facilitating and supporting student projects by establishing a robust institutional setup. We see the partnership facilitators as so-called boundary brokers playing a significant role in five dimensions: • Good understanding of the core values and strategic priorities of both communities and taking the essential part as interlocutors between the organizations. • Good knowledge of problem-oriented and project-based learning and the identification and scoping of projects. • Proactive all year round to share knowledge and experiences to create and maintain an attractive Living Laboratory. • Providing professional and practical support to student projects. • Professional capability and personal strength to select and reject student projects. The boundary brokers must emphasise on networking and storytelling to maintain the interest for the collaboration at strategic and operational levels. Local success criteria and individual interests play a significant role, to which the brokers must be humble and responsive. It is a complex working field where brokers are spending a lot of effort in adjusting, framing, focusing and wording projects. Especially knowledge sharing in and between the CoP’s is a challenging and fragile process that requires support and attention from several actors including management. Managerial tasks are: • Bring the right people together. • Provide infrastructure and economy in which the communities can thrive. • Recognize the support and selflessness the boundary brokers provide to make projects successful.
7. Findings and results Most of the activities are specialised courses, i.e. courses designed to specific student interests. Further, DTU has offered three regular courses (software systems, waste management and acoustics). The students must have supervisors at the university to ensure the fulfilment of learning objectives and other educational requirements. In addition, DTU each year constructs a ‘Tech Lab’, which acts as co-working station, meeting hub and exhibition area.
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DTU Science show sampling nitro-icecream based on beer from the DTU Brewery
DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES FOR LEARNING IN THE LIVING LAB OFFERED THROUGH THE PLATFORM. Type Project in courses dedicated the festival (e.g. waste, acoustics)
Characteristics Continuous support from supervisors to take responsibility for the course.
Merit Yes
Project on a festival case in existing university courses
An identified fit between a specific festival case and the learning objectives in the course.
Yes
Dedicated special course
A specialised course supervised by academic staff. A dialogue between students, academic staff and RF, defines the course.
Yes
Extracurricular project or support team
Students can engage without relations to merit giving activities. They can work on specific projects or support functions.
No
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Setting up the student project Paper Pavilion, which is home to Tech Lab at the festival site
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How to organize collaboration – the institutional setup Institutions can acquire relevant new knowledge by interacting with other institutions. Such interactive learning processes will be grounded in the institutional setup, which strategic management may develop to support innovation, as they have done in the case of the DTU/RF partnership. We have experienced it essential to dedicate facilitators at DTU as well as RF and establish a free-flowing dialogue between them. Therefore, DTU-coordinators (engineering students) and RF Student Platform (festival volunteers) are in the centre of the figure below. INSTITUTIONAL SETUP Characteristics of Living Lab Activities DTU - staff
Roskilde Festival - staff
DTU management
RF management
DTU Students Teachers
DTU Coordinators
RF Student Platform
RF Organizers
Student projects Results Start-ups
The students carry out the projects under supervision from academic staff who has domain scientific expertise; further, an organizer from the festival assigned to each project ensures alignment with RF interests. At DTU, two project coordinators are responsible for daily operations and contacts with the students. A project manager at DTU Administration is responsible for the administrative and economic aspects of the partnership. Work tasks for DTU-coordinators and RF Student Platform Facilitating collaboration is inspiring and troublesome. We face and manage several challenges and practical problems, and DTU-coordinators and RF Student Platform have a significant border crossing function in the partnership. We have interviewed both groups to clarify their work tasks and activities, and further, as well as the former project manager at DTU Administration (responsible until 2018). Inspired by the concept of Communities of Practice, we have structured these findings into brokering work tasks and services.
Alignment on the overall purpose for the cooperation Resources; Strategic goals; Recognition Dialogue; Support; Contract; Coordination; Facilitation; Networking; Meetings Supervision; Project work; Living-lab platform
Institutional setup for the DTU/RF partnership. The black boxes refer to strategic management level. The grey boxes to activities around student projects and the orange boxes the ’engine room’ of the cooperation. The arrows indicate communication channels.
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DTU-COORDINATORS - WORK TASKS AND SERVICES Design and facilitation of network • Establish and maintain year-round relations within both DTU and RF • Expand knowledge and importance of the partnership • Continuously search for, promote and matchmake new project ideas Scoping and quality assurance of student projects • Be curious – read newsletters, spot trends (in society, education etc.) • Adjust scope, framing, feedback and wording of student proposals • Help with fundraising and economic support Visibility on the activities and projects to key stakeholders at DTU and RF • Arrange guided festival tour for DTU staff with emphasis on showcasing student projects • Be aware of success stories and passing them to DTU’s communications team and upwards in the organization • Be available for interviews with media Cooperation with RF • Adjust scope and framing of festival problem focus areas into concrete student projects • Check that both DTU and RF live up to agreements made in the contract • Handle agreements and permits (driving license, use of logo, electricity, pitch etc.) Evaluation and lessons learned from student projects • Collect, analyse and draw future perspectives of the results of the projects Practical support before, during and after the festival • Equipment lending, transport and logistics of project equipment • Establishment and staffing of exhibition stand • Administration, open office and regular office work • Book-keeping on budgets and reimbursements
DTU Science Show at Roskilde Festival 2019.
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RF STUDENT PLATFORM – WORK TASKS AND SERVICES Internal networking in a large and diverse organization • Draw attention to student projects and motivate festival staff to submit proposals • Identify ownership and stakeholders for the projects within the RF organization • Place the projects physically and geographically on the festival area • PR, including internal communication Evaluation and lessons learned from student projects • Evaluate the execution of projects at the festival • Identify themes concerning the upcoming festivals Administrative tasks • Consider copyright and owner rights • Check that both DTU and RF live up to agreements made in the contract • Handle insurance, accreditations and (official) permits
Student participation and study programs Survey results show a high interest in the partnership and willingness to recommend fellow students to join the partnership. RF is a strong brand among young people in Scandinavia, and many students have been festival guests. We present below an overview of student projects categorized according to disciplinary themes. Project descriptions from 2016 onward are available here: https://roskilde.dtu.dk/english/projects
STUDENT PROJECTS, PARTICIPANTS, RF CONTACTS AND DTU SUPERVISORS (2010-2019). THE ASTERISK INDICATES ESTIMATED NUMBERS BASED ON LIMITED HISTORICAL DATA. Year Participants Projects Study programs RF contacts DTU supervisors 2010 20* 2 Not recorded Not recorded Not recorded 2011 20* 7 Not recorded Not recorded Not recorded 2012 130* 20 Not recorded Not recorded Not recorded 2013 99 25 14 21 21 2014 101 23 17 22 12 2015 90 21 19 10 17 2016 87 19 22 16 12 2017 83 21 21 16 15 2018 85 22 18 18 16 2019 85 18 21 15 16
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PROJECT CATEGORIES AND NUMBER OF PROJECTS
Categorization of the number of student projects in disciplinary themes (2010-2019).
Other Energy production Energy efficiency Waste and recycling Audience behaviour Water, hygiene, electricity Infrastructure and areas Demonsration of technology Audience involvement Acoustics and scenes Cooling of bevereages Food 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
From 2013 to 2019, students from 27 out of the 63 programs participated. The platform is, however, especially attractive among students from ‘Design & Innovation’, due to their problem-oriented and project-based learning approach. Students from acoustics, electrical, environmental, civil, and mechanical engineering disciplines are also regularly participating.
TOP 10 STUDY PROGRAMS (2013-2019). THE CATEGORY ‘OTHER’ INCLUDES STUDENTS FROM 17 DIFFERENT STUDY PROGRAMS. STUDENTS PARTICIPATING WITH SUPPORT FUNCTIONS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS LIST. Study program
Number of students
Computer science and engineering 13 Environmental engineering 53 Physics and nanotechnology 10 Biotechnology 19 Civil engineering 51 Production and construction 23 Electrical engineering 68 Acoustic science and technology engineering 71 Design and innovation 164 BEng mechanical engineering 14 Other 128
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8. Student-driven start-ups Research shows that interlacing entrepreneurship and innovation as part of the university strategy combined with management support in concrete activities is a core driver for successful implementation. Another central aspect is the role of the student-led entrepreneurship community, which is a prominent driver for successful implementation. This is in line with the DTU approach where the DTU/RF partnership began as a student-driven initiative back in 2010 and has been led and facilitated by engineering students since then. RF and DTU have strong brands. We have learned from the students that both brands are central for start-ups, especially what concerns introduction to essential stakeholders and responses from potential customers. Fourteen projects have resulted in student-driven start-ups. A number of these are now closed, revitalized with reorganized teams, while others are on hiatus. At present, roughly half of them are still active. This multifaceted outcome is not surprising when benchmarked against the general start-up populations in university ecosystems. The primary objective of the partnership is learning, and founding a start-up company and closing it again, if it does not show promising viable business strengths or interests, is valuable lessons learned for a wouldbe engineering entrepreneur.
Acoustics measurements being conducted during a live concert at the festival
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2011 Bio-fuel Generator Status: Closed Deep frying oil for electricity production. Diesel generators and fuel supply system designed to utilize old frying oil from the food stands at the festival. 2012 Volt Status Status: Still Active Mobile charging service system. Power banks for festival participants as a subscription service. Volt has further developed its product and has grown into a company with an international potential that offers mobile charging to over thirty festivals in six countries. https://getvolt.dk/ 2012 Cutlab - Kubio Status: Still Active Kubio is a CNC milled modular installation concept by Cutlab designed to create recreational seating and podium environments for events and urban spaces. The concept facilitates the construction of temporary installations. The product has awarded a ‘Red Dot Design Award’. http://www.kubio.dk 2013 DropBucket Status: Still Active A disposable cardboard waste bin for events, produced by recycled materials from an FSC-certified Danish producer. The bin comes folded, minimizing transport and storage space. They are widely used all over the festival and for numerous other events. DropBucket has received a ‘Red Dot Design Award’. https://dropbucket.com/ 2013 PeeFence Status: Still Active Peefence is a flexible waterless urinal - quickly set up in large quantities in outdoor settings. Made from a thin plastic sheet, optimizing compact storage and transport. Custom graphics entice the guests to go for a urinal and pass water without being a nuisance to the surroundings. PeeFence has received a ‘Danish Design Award’. https://www.peefence.com/ 2015 Paprnote Status: Closed A digital-physical snowdrop letter. Interactive digital fabrication concept for the preparation of personal snowdrop letters at the festival. 2015 ObTek Status: Still Active An add-on device to sinks used for handwashing. An interactive interface supports users in properly washing their hands. The device was tested at the festival and then pivoted into targeting kindergartens and other institutions. Winners of Venture Cup 2020. http://www.obtek.dk/ Volt, DropBucket, PeeFence.
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2017 Allumen Status: Closed Utilizing glowing algae that naturally glow in the dark, a phenomenon called bioluminescence. The vision was to develop sustainable alternatives for light. Allumen also provided educational kits for primary schools. https://www.allumen.dk/ 2017 Containdom Status: Closed A new type of packaging for condoms, which allowed using the packaging as a disposal container before the condom is discarded. 2017 GLØD Lanterns Status: Hiatus A portable lantern using several LED bulbs powered by a power bank. An Arduino Nano controls the lights and uses a microphone to listen to the surrounding music and pulse, creating an interactive functionality where colours and light changes according to sounds nearby. Made from partially recycled parts. https://www.facebook.com/GlodLanterns/ 2018 Alarmified Status: Hiatus A small (8x4x2 cm) device, containing a motion sensor, an RFID receiver and a siren. The user can easily activate and deactivate the alarm with an RFID tag. http://alarmified.com/ 2017 BÆNK Status: Closed BÆNK is a low cost and reusable modular seating module, which can be set up quickly and easily in different combinations depending on requirements for furnishing common areas. 2018 DrinkSaver Status: Still active DrinkSaver can be inserted into regular disposable cups. It minimizes overspill, e.g. at concerts by functioning as a partial lid without hindering drinking. In 2018, DrinkSaver pitched at the ‘Plastic Engineering Day’. 2019 Mellow Designs Status: Still Active The goal is to popularize the paradigm of the circular economy by creating spaces for every-day use with upcycled and recycled materials. By renting a unique Euro Pallet connection system, Mellow Designs provides customers with a holistic solution. http://mellowdesigns.dk/
Glød, DrinkSaver, MellowPod.
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The festival signature stage ’The Orange Stage’ live during concert
We believe that the Living Lab attracts entrepreneurial-minded students, as they see the festival context as accelerated means for testing and verifying prototypes for design solutions. The unique needs of the festival and the visitors allow the students to innovate for niche markets. These are often very difficult to penetrate without insider knowledge and close collaborations with the stakeholders, e.g. Volt, DropBucket and Peefence managed to utilize this potential and scaled up their reach and market upon successful validation.
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It is crucial to ensure students intellectual property rights. Therefore, the formal partnership contract ensures the student’s rights concerning commercialization. As the festival activities involve implementing and testing systems and prototypes with the users, the contract also addresses issues regarding liability and insurances. Lessons learned from student-driven start-ups The facilitators play a crucial role. In a survey leading up to RF in 2018, we analysed alignment between what the facilitators saw as relevant tasks/services and how useful this support was to the students. Nine out of thirteen start-ups responded. The questions addressed the support before, during and after the festival, uncovering: • Whether the project idea/concept originated from the students, the university or the festival. • Whether the festival was a first-time test of the idea/concept or based on previous experiences. • Valuable learning about customers, branding/marketing together with functional/technical insights, which could result in design improvements. • The amount of practical, economical, networking and the professional support the students receive before, during and after the festival. Concept maturity stage Five out of nine start-up teams worked on ideas that were rooted in their business ideas. Two concepts had their origin, and initial conceptualization, through formal courses at DTU. Two teams performed projects without commercial interests or educational merits, and the entrepreneurial ambition emerged during the project process. Six teams presented their product/service to customers/stakeholders for the first time at the festival. Others had before the festival varied their concept by a key functionality, a ‘looks like’ or ‘works like’ prototype. The literature on product development often stresses the importance of collecting feedback from stakeholders early in a product development process to support the design of the right product or service to offer. How did the students perceive support activities? The students pay notice to the support they received: scope of concept, contact to relevant stakeholders, PR and access to equipment. Only three teams noticed the support on contracts and permits. An open question is if the students themselves could have handled all the complex legal aspects required by the festival. We think that they take these administrative aspects for granted and that the work of the DTU-coordinators goes somewhat unnoticed.
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PROJECT SUPPORT BY COORDINATORS Overview of the support the start-up experienced they received from the coordinators before, during and after the festival. The start-ups acknowledge especially the ‘concrete’ aspects such as borrowing equipment.
8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Before festival During festival After festival
1 0 1
2
Scoping of concept
Introduction to important stakeholders
3 Economic support
4 PR and media leads
5
6
Borrow Contracts/ equipment permits
7
8
Transport/ Storrage of Logistics equipment
Commercial effectiveness of collaboration Most project teams had their first encounter with customers or market stakeholders at the festival. Respondents evaluated the test environment at the festival as highly beneficial in obtaining valuable technical feedback for direct changes in the design. Within product development, the ability to make relevant design changes as early as possible is widely acknowledged to correlate with designs that are more successful and cost savings in the overall design process. Teams also acknowledged that their presence at the festival had some or very much branding and marketing effects. Such ‘guerrilla marketing’ benefits are highly valuable for small start-up companies who hardly have the budgets to run extensive marketing campaigns.
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HOW EFFECTIVE WAS RF COLLABORATION IN.. 100%
Overview of to what extend the start-ups experienced that the partnership was effective in providing project support. Answers on a scale from 1-5. 1 is ’No, not at all’. 5 is ’Yes, very much’.
90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30%
1 (No, Not at all) 2 3 4 5 (Yes, very much)
20% 10% 0% Support to take project further
Learning about customers
Branding & marketing
Tehnical insights resulting in changes
Finally, the survey indicated mixed opinions on DTU’s ability to support the projects after the festival. We expected this feedback, as it has been beyond the scope of the partnership to create lasting companies. On the other hand, support after the festival can be an opportunity to improve the available support throughout the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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Helium balloons and camera used to document and study the waste handling at the festival campsite.
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9. Theoretical inspiration – three building blocks The main goal of the partnership is learning through co-creation platform projects. A key consideration is to connect student-framed learning processes to external practitioners in such a way that the students’ learning experiences can be genuinely personal and professional. In praxis, students seek out an interesting problem situation, and the facilitators help to find a supervisor and a festival contact. The platform is an opportunity for all study programs at DTU. Therefore, the platform is embracing a variety of engineering disciplines, educational levels and didactical principles. It is of importance for DTU that the students can earn merit for their work. RF see the students as festival co-creators, supervised in using disciplinary methods and research labs, design workshops, and disciplinary networks. Our approach is cross-disciplinary inspired by concepts and methods from the following theoretical fields: • Pedagogical practices within the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship in engineering education – the CDIO concept. • Unfolding and developing the Living Lab concept as a platform for creativity and knowledge sharing. • Facilitating projects across Communities of Practice emphasizing the role of boundary brokering and boundary objects. Pedagogical practices – innovation an entrepreneurship There are two basic pedagogical views: • The general principles in problem-oriented and project-based learning where the students shall deliver a project plan comprising aim, problem definition, methods, resources and deliverables. • The establishment of a learning environment, addressing student learning through innovation, where the objective is to provide students with innovative skills, competences and behaviour. CDIO is an acronym for Conceive, Design, Implement and Operate. It is a lifecycle model addressing the phases in engineering work and a widespread concept to describe the competencies characterizing professional problem-solving in engineering. The concept has three overall goals: • Master a more in-depth working knowledge of technical fundamentals. • Lead in the creation and operation of new products, processes and systems. • Understand the importance and strategic impact of research and technological developments on society and a move toward sustainable technologies.
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CONCEIVE-DESIGN-IMPLEMENT-OPERATE AS A LIFECYCLE MODEL OF A PRODUCT, PROCESS, PROJECT OR SYSTEM - DEVELOPED BY MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF LINKÖBING. Conceive
mission conceptual design
Identification and recognition of the problem situation. Defining customer needs and considering technology.
Design
preliminary design detailed design
Creating the detailed information description of the design (plans, drawings, algorithms etc.)
Implement
Operate
element creation systems' Transforming the design into the product, process or integration & test system. Testing and validation. life cycle support evolution
Using the implemented product, process or system to deliver the intended value.
The intention is to educate students who understand how to conceive-design-implement-operate complex value-added engineering systems in a modern team-based environment. The festival setting is a unique, authentic learning environment for developing these skills as it provides the possibility to run throughout the entire CDIO lifecycle: • Conceive: The goal must be well defined, and the project shall be innovative and relevant to the festival. • Design: The students shall sketch design solutions and discuss these with their supervisor and the festival contact. • Implement: The students shall consider implementation and testing of the design solution, including specific test requirements. • Operation: The students shall outline the applicability of the solution in other contexts than the festival. Living Labs in University-based entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems During the past decade, we have witnessed the rise of the Maker Movement; a new generation of grassroots organized Makers who collaborate and explore new ways of creative and innovative behaviour. The industry, municipalities, and educational institutions often establish concepts such as FabLabs, Hackerspaces, and Makerspaces to support them. Especially, universities offering technical programs have embraced the idea to support project-based courses and student innovation activities. Despite vague terminology on what specifically characterizes a university makerspace one of the main characteristics is the focus on fabrication and physical prototyping.
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Workshop on how to build music instruments, e.g., with common household items and DIY electronics.
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When viewed as an innovation milieu, Living Labs share similarities with Makerspaces and FabLabs but do not share the same focus on fabrication and prototyping. The two main elements characterizing Living Labs are real-life tests and experimentations, and users who are aware of being co-involved in the innovation process. Communities of Practice - boundary objects and boundary brokers So-called Communities of Practice (CoPs) are the basic building blocks of a social learning system because they are the social containers of competences. CoPs competencies are defined by combining three elements: • Members have a collective understanding of their community. • Members build their community through mutual engagement, and through interaction, they establish relationships and shared norms. • The CoP has developed a shared repertoire of resources (language, routines, sensibilities, tools, stories, styles, etc.).
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CoP A
CoP B
CoP A
CoP B
CoP A
CoP B
Visualization of Communities of Practice and boundary brokering
Both DTU and RF are complex social systems internally constituted by a diversity of complementary and partially overlapping CoPs. A key element in cross-institutional collaboration is the identification of problem situations of common interest. The concept of ‘boundary object’ is one way that the tension between different viewpoints is considered and managed. These objects satisfy the requirements of each CoP. Boundary objects are essential for two reasons. The students learning through boundary objects and the institutional setup to facilitate boundary objects. The interaction between members of CoPs is a vital force in learning as the definition of boundary objects must be based on a mutual understanding. At the boundaries, competence and experience tend to diverge. A boundary interaction is usually an experience of being exposed to a different way of thinking. Therefore, an essential element in student learning is the creation of content through dialogue with festival contacts. Facilitating and managing boundary objects is a process requiring a variety of engaged and persistent interactions across the boundaries. The role of the DTU-coordinators and RF Student Platform is as boundary brokers. Boundary brokers can introduce elements of one practice into another. Brokers are members of multiple communities and able to make active connections between them. The broker’s role is essentially that of an interlocutor: to help other actors to transfer, translate or transform the meaning encountered during joint activities. As such, they are integral in making the partnership between RF and DTU successful.
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Students focused on their own project risk, not noticing the bigger picture: the empowerment of themselves as participants and agents for change within the festival and society. Their experience at RF is a means for them to gain a deeper understanding of their future role as engineers and their ability to alter aspects of a larger-than-life entity such as RF. Since, it is part of the raison d’être of both RF and DTU to support novel and fresh initiatives of young people for the benefit of themselves, the festival and society, it is vital to back up the role of boundary brokers, and so widening the ambit of the partnership.
Gamified VR experience for collecting cigarette buts from the festival site
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10. Lessons learned and recommendations CEO support from both organizations has been crucial. Their support has been in the form of allocation of resources (working hours and money), and in the way of clearly visible recognition to the partnership and the students work. Several times CEOs have shown their interest by joining events where students and festival organizers are participating. Many students and festival organizers consider the presence of managers as rewarding and recognizing. In both organizations, the daily management and operation of the partnership is anchored in overarching support departments and not at a specific university department or festival division, which has created autonomy and stability. Another way to recognize the students’ work is for the organisations to assist them in storytelling about their projects. The issues vary from project to project, but all have problem-solving at their core, often resulting in new design solutions. Since the projects are often addressing problems that few are aware of or have thought too difficult to solve, they often serve as good press stories. Also, the students’ enthusiasm revolves around something other than music and alcohol, providing journalists with an opportunity to write stories about another kind of creativity and dedication. For the university and the festival alike, these are a means to good publicity and effective branding - specifically for DTU, especially concerning the recruitment of new students. Visit by members of DTU’s executive board and department heads 2017
The role of DTU-coordinators and RF Student Platform All year around the DTU-coordinators and RF Student Platform, establish and maintain network/relations within both organizations. To keep an all year attention to the partnership emphasis is on a storytelling about student-driven startups and other activities. Regular meetings discussing activities, evaluation, new projects, planning, keep close contact, etc. A boundary broker translates knowledge created in one group into the language of another so that the new group can integrate it into its cognitive portfolio. The brokers must be able to manage the relations between individuals as well as act
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as interlocutors. Asking the DTU-coordinators and RF Student Platform, a vast amount of intensive oral and written dialogues, take place to avoid misunderstandings and to ensure acceptance of deals by DTU and RF. Brokering knowledge requires enough legitimacy to be heard and enough distance to bring something new. Often brokers do not contribute directly to any specific outcome, and the value of their work is easily overlooked. In the case of the partnership, for example, the DTU-coordinators and RF Student Platform must be humble and responsive to other’s ideas, and they shall accept not to achieve direct credit for successful projects. Further, the facilitators must be brave and trustworthy and be able to make decisions that may be unpopular. Facilitating collaboration can be a complex and puzzling challenge. Most of the festival organizers are volunteers, and their incitement is rooted in personal interests. Further, the festival is an organization dominated by tacit knowledge meaning that knowledge sharing can be cumbersome. Consequently, it is often a hard job to get documentation and data from the festival sought by the students for their projects. Opposite to the festival, all employees at DTU are paid staff that prefer to perform paid work that is relevant to their current position. These two organizational structures outline the complex arena for the work of the boundary brokers, requiring a considerable amount of dialogues, patience, commitment and perseverance. Finding the right boundary brokers is a question of finding individuals that thrive on creating boundary bridges. We believe that the student-driven and student-led approach is a significant element to explain the success of the partnership. The DTU-coordinators themselves must be engineering students so that they can meet their fellow students at eye level. Success criteria and rationales of boundary brokering Top-down support is crucial concerning the allocation of resources and support to overcome obstacles and resentment in the organizations. Therefore, the facilitators must have a clear understanding of the success criteria for both organizations. We see the success criteria as setting the scene for local agendas that contribute to establishing a sense of joint enterprise. Knowledge and praxis within a CoP consist of elements of explicit and implicit knowledge, which is often internal, expressed by a ‘we-feeling’ difficult to put into words. Knowledge and praxis build up over the years, based on mutual respect, engagement and confidence. Hence, managers cannot mandate CoPs. Instead, successful managers bring the right people together, provide an infrastructure in which the community can thrive and measures the communities’ value in non-traditional ways.
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Prior project coordinator Daniel high-fiving on the completion of yet another successful festival
Opportunities to support student-driven start-ups Until today, the engineering students have only received support before and during the festival. Our work reveals that student-driven start-ups can be strengthened by increasingly supporting teams after the festival. A recommendation is to clarify proper next steps and support initiatives for the projects, which will probably also enhance the DTU/RF partnership, as both organizations are strongly interested in branding themselves in the field of facilitating entrepreneurship.
11. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank all partners of the partnership for their continuous support and enthusiasm. We would also like to thank every student who has contributed over the years. Their creativity, motivation and passion are the core of the very success of this partnership. Throughout the partnership, and indeed throughout this text, we have been very much influenced by several theorists from fields such as education, pedagogy, management, entrepreneurship and innovation. We hope that this list of sources and suggested reading will be of value to anyone interested in exploring the themes covered in further detail.
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REFERENCES Akkerman, S.F., Bakker, A. (2011). ”Boundary crossing and boundary objects”, Review of Educational Research, 81/2, 132-169. Anderson, C. (2012). Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. Random House LLC. Aulet, B. (2013). Disciplined entrepreneurship: 24 steps to a successful startup. John Wiley & Sons Bergvall-Kareborn, B., Stahlbrost, A. (2009). Living Lab: an open and citizen-centric approach for innovation. Int. J. Innov. Reg. Dev. 1, 356–370. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJIRD.2009.022727 Blank, S. (2012). The startup owner’s manual: The step-by-step guide for building a great company. BookBaby Bowker, G.C., Star, S.L. (1999). Sorting Things Out. Classification and Its Consequences, The MIT Press. . Brexendorf, T.O., Bayes, B., Keller, K.L. (2015). ”Understanding the interplay between brand and innovation management: findings and future directions”, J. of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(5), 548-557. Crawley, E.F., Malmqvist, J., Östlund, S., Brodeur, D.R., Edström, K. (2014). Rethinking engineering education : The CDIO approach, Chapter 2, Springer International Publishing Switzerland. Dell’Era, C., Landoni, P. (2014). Living Lab: A Methodology between User-Centred Design and Participatory Design. Creat. Innov. Manag. 23, 137–154. https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12061 Farnsworth, V., Kleanthouse, I; Wenger-Trayner, E. (2016). “Communities of Practice as a Social Theory of Learning: a Conversation Etienne-Trayner”, British Journal of Educational Studies, 64/2, 139-160. Geraldi, J., Thuesen, C., Oehmen, J., Stingl, V. (2017). Doing projects. A Nordic Flavour to Manage Projects, DS Handbook 185-2017, Forlaget Dansk Standard. Gershenfeld, N. (2008). Fab: the coming revolution on your desktop–from personal computers to personal fabrication. Basic Books. Graham, R. (2013). “Technology Innovation Ecosystem Benchmarking Study: Key findings from Phase 1”, MIT Skoltech Initiative. Graham, R. (2014). “Creating university-based entrepreneurial ecosystems - evidence from emerging world leaders”, MIT Skoltech Initiative. Holm, V., Joseph, E. (2015). What are Makerspaces, Hackerspaces, and Fab Labs? Hackerspaces Fab Labs IRISgroup (2018). Iværksætteri på DTU gennem to artier - indsats, resultater og samfundsmæssige effekter. Prepared for the Technical University of Denmark. Jørgensen, C.B., Hjortsø, C.N. (2015). At åbne de lukkede universitetsrum: innovationspædagogik/entreprenørskabsundervisning, [In:] Rienecker,L., Jørgensen, P.S. Universitetspædagogiske praksisser, Samfundslitteratur. Kimble, C., Grenier, C.; Goglio-Primard, K. (2010). “Innovation and knowledge sharing across professional boundaries: Political interplay between boundary objects and boundary brokers”, International Journal of Information Management, 30, 437-444. Lehmann, M., Christensen, P.; Du, X., Thrane, M. (2008). “Problem-oriented and project-based learning (POPBL) as an innovative learning strategy for sustainable development in engineering education”, Eur. J. Eng. Educ., vol. 33, no. 3, 283-295. Long, J.C., Cunningham, F.C., Braithwaite, J. (2013). “Bridges, brokers and boundary spanners in collaborative networks: a systematic review”, BMC Health Services Research, 13:158. Marstrand, S. (2005). “Videndeling i og mellem communities of practice”, Ledelse & Erhvervsøkonomi, 3/2005, 153163. Miettilnen, R. (2002). How Do We Keep the Living Laboratory Alive? Learning and Conflicts in Living Lab Collaboration - ProQuest. Technol. Innov. Manag. Rev. Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. John Wiley & Sons Perrenet, J.C. (2000). “The Suitability of Problem-based Learning for Engineering Education: Theory and practice”, Teach. High. Educ., vol. 5, no. 3, 345–358. Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Random House LLC. Roskilde Festival. (2018) www.roskilde-festival.dk Roskilde Festival Powered by DTU Students (2019), www.roskilde. dtu.dk . Svensson, O.H., Adawi, T., Lundqvist, M., Middleton, K.W. (2019). ’Entrepreneurial engineering pedagogy: models, tradeoffs and discourses’, European Journal of Engineering Education, Ulrich, K.T., Eppinger, S.D. (2007). Product design and development. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Van Rijnsoever, F.J., Van Weele, M.A., Eveleens, C.P. (2017). “Network brokers or hit makers? Analyzing the influence of incibation on start-up investments”, Int Entrep. Manag. J., 13, 605-629. Weinmann, J. (2014). ”Makerspaces in the university community”. Master Thesis. Stanford University Wenger, E. (2000). “Communities of practice and social learning systems”, Organisation, 7(2), 225-246. Wenger, E. (2009). Communities of practice and social learning systems: the career of a concept, http://wenger-trayner.com/resources/publications/cops-and-learning-systems/ Wenger, E.C., Snyder, W.M. (2000). ”Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier, Harvard Business Review, Reprint number R00110.
PHOTO CREDITS AND LAYOUT Page 1, 10, 27: Mikal Schlosser | Page 2: Jens Dige/ROCKPHOTO | Page 3: Lasse Mortensen | Page 6, 18: SH Luftfoto/ Stiig Hougesen | Page 7, 9, 12, 22, 25, 30: Ditte Valente | Page 15: Tuala Hjarnø | Page 16: Volt, Tuala Hjarnø, Ditte Valente | Page 17: Mikal Schlosser, Mikal Schlosser, Ditte Valente | Page 20-21: Pil Christoffersen/Roskilde Festival | Page 28: Birgitte Rasmussen | Layout: Marianne Rom Andersen
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