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All EIT Digital Summer Schools completely online

The EIT Digital Entrepreneurial Academy announces that the EIT Digital Summer Schools will be held completely online in August 2020. This is being said by Roberto Prieto, Chief Education Officer of EIT Digital.

The decision had been made in the light of the pandemic COVID-19. ''Because summer school requires a lot of organisation, both on the organising as on the participant side, we have decided to organise all the summer schools completely online'', Prieto says. “The Summer School organisers are working hard now to prepare the best online summer school experience ever.”

During the two-week EIT Digital Summer School participants will be offered high-level quality lectures on both key digital technologies  and innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) to learn how to turn deep tech into business. Besides, they will crack in online teams real business case studies originating from EIT Digital's pan-European ecosystem of scaleups, industrial and academic partners and research companies. “This means that we demand full dedication of the attendees for the entire two weeks”, says Prieto.

The real-life experiences and learning effects will be offered online, explains Timo Nyberg, head of the EIT Digital Summer Schools. “During the whole two weeks there will be coaches available for the Summer School teams to help the attendees preparing their final pitches. Company visits will also be held in webinar style and students will conduct their customer interviews online.”

The summer schools are open to researchers, industry professionals, master and PhD students and are mandatory to EIT Digital Master School students. The mixture of attendees is enriching, says Prieto based on experiences in the last years. “The attendees learn to master the language of both business and technology. Understanding how to turn technology into business is a skill that Europe needs to be competitive. The summer schools are one of the ways in which EIT Digital is working to make Europe a leading player in the digital economy.”

Each summer school is themed around one of the five focus areas in which EIT Digital sees major societal and industrial challenges as well as opportunities for Europe to take a leadership position in the global digital economy. These areas are: Digital Industry, Digital Cities, Digital Wellbeing, Digital Tech, and Digital Finance.

Because of the online variant of the EIT Digital Summer School, there are limited extra places available. Anyone interested in committing him or herself for a two-week deep dive on how to make business out of emerging technologies can apply here: https://academy.eitdigital.eu

Prior to the actual start of the summer school, all summer school attendees receive as usual an online starter kit. In here there are lectures for the students to prepare themselves for the upcoming weeks. This also ensures that all attendees have on some topics the same entry levels. Online and blended education is by the way key to the EIT Digital Academy.

Read also what former attendees of one of the EIT Digital Summer Schools had learned:

Matilda Åberg-Wennerholm

Roosa Kallionpää