Professor Ulrich Weinberg

Design Thinking 4.0 - The cultural dimension of digital transformation

The talk reflects the paradigm shift which we all are witnessing right now. The shift from a more linear analogue way to think and act with a focus on competition and hierarchy towards a much more efficient, nonlinear digital mode with the focus on collaboration and connectivity. The competitive "IQ-mode", measuring single people performance, needs to be replaced by the new "WeQ-mode", focusing on We-Qualities, promoting a "team of teams" habit with new incentive models in education and business.

Prof. Weinberg will present how the HPI School of Design Thinking supports students, leaders, and entire organizations on their transformation path. He will share some of his insights using and further developing "Design Thinking", the apparently most holistic agile framework to support individuals and organizations on their path towards a digital culture.

Dr. Ronny Adhikarya

Synopsis of a Keynote Presentation on:
Reinvention & "Locus4GlobOption" in Super-Smart Society 5.0 Era: Sharing Asian Initiatives for Edupreneurs.

In my last Keynote Address to the 2018 International Conference on Engineering & Business Education (ICEBE) in Poland, I shared the present State-of-the-Art of the Sharing (now called Subscription) Economy's business models & its human resources needs in light of innovative “niche” offerings of the Disruptors (e.g., Apple, Amazon, Google, FaceBook, Uber, Netflix, AirBnB, etc.), which presently are among the world’s largest companies.

For this Conference, I focus on few innovative and competitive approaches, initiated in Asia, which reinvent & adapt some concepts, business models, and operational strategies of the Disruptors' AI-based communication & technology enterprises, with impressive results. There are some examples of particular ideas or business models invented in the West, which were reinvented, adapted, and adopted (initially only locally) in a much larger scale and with faster growth & time frame in some parts of Asia. Furthermore, the reinvention process which manages to provide value-added or new value-creation to the original idea or business model or strategy, also appears to diffuse rapidly, widely, and globally, including in the place of origin of the invention.

Thus, here seems to be a reverse phenomenon of what was earlier called: GloCalization (Global Vision, Local Action/Adaptation). It signals a new initiative, which I called: Local Success for Global Adoption (Locus4GlobOption). The examples include the success stories of GoJek, K-Pop Culture, FlipKart, AliBaba, MakeMyTrip, Huawei's 5G, etc., in light of the present shift from Industry 4.0 to a newer "(Super- Smart) SOCIETY 5.0" paradigm, in the midst of the rapid A.I. development.

While there are many successful and widespread technological "reinvention" going on in Asia, and adopted globally, such "Locus4GlobOption" may have created some economic & political tensions and perhaps perpetuated "Trade Wars" and a more dangerous "Technology War". Kai-Fu Lee (2018), the famous A.I. expert, ex- President of Google China, and Venture Capitalist, predicted in his recent book on "AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Orde", that the next decade will be called: "COPY from CHINA" Era.

We have seen the tremendous impact of Industry 4.0 technological applications (especially in Asia) on society, and also the controversies re. the positive & negative usage of the Internet of (Every) Thing (IOeT) during the last decade. Examples include problems of Post-Truth (fake/hoax & hate info. campaigns) phenomena, privacy issues, digital literacy gap problems, intellectual property rights matters etc. Hence, A New Humanism for the 21^st Century has been proposed by UNESCO, and described by its ex-Director General, Irina Bokova, as follows:

In 2019, Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) published Society 5.0: Co-creating the Future, described as:

Japan will host its first-ever G20 summit on 28-19 June 2019 in Osaka, and this grand initiative on Society 5.0 will be on the Agenda of the Official B20 (Business 20) Summit headed by the Chairman of Hitachi corporation.

My Keynote presentation will include observations on "trans-disciplinary" multisectoral approach, and "niching" strategies, of the reinvention process. Such an approach may have implications and lessons learned for reforms of "more of the same" educational programs & curricula, so that the focus, purpose, and method should NOT be to prepare Students for a Job, but to CREATE JOBS, and EDUPRENEURS.

Such an educational reform is the "talk of town" nowadays, esp. among learning institutions in many Asian, and other countries, due to the human/labor displacement problems/disruptions. Education must focus on mastery of proper, wise & ethical use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technology applications, Machine/Deep-Learning systems, Big-Data Analytics, etc. in the Subscription Economy Era, and in global context of Post-Humanism and Super-Smart Society 5.0 needs & wants.

I will NOT be providing solutions and/or suggestions about "HOW" to improve the educational policies, strategies, management and methods, of a particular learning organization. Such an exercise is best done by its own stakeholders, based on its context, mission/vision, market needs and priorities. However, I will offer Agenda- Setting suggestions for WHAT TO THINK ABOUT in the process of leveraging a learning organization’s Tacit Knowledge Niche, and in Curriculum Review & Reform guided by a Penta-Helix Educational conceptual framework, based on contemporary best/poor practices I have observed in many countries globally.

Ugo Fiore, Ph.D.

Neural Networks in the Educational Sector: Challenges and Opportunities

Given their increasing diffusion, deep learning networks have long been considered an important subject on which teaching efforts should be concentrated, to support a fast and effective training. In addition to that role, the availability of rich data coming from several sources underlines the potential of neural networks used as an analysis tool to identify critical aspects, plan upgrades and adjustments, and ultimately improve learning experience. Analysis and forecasting methods have been widely used in this context, allowing policy makers, managers and educators to make informed decisions.

The capabilities of recurring neural networks-in particular Long Short-Term Memory networks-in the analysis of natural language have led to their use in measuring the similarity of educational materials. Massive Online Open Courses provide a rich variety of data about the learning behaviors of online learners. The analysis of learning paths provides insights related to the optimization of learning processes, as well as the prediction of outcomes and performance. Another active area of research concerns the recommendation of suitable personalized, adaptive, learning paths, based on varying sources, including even the tracing of eye-path movements. In this way, the transition from passive learning to active learning can be achieved. Challenges and opportunities in the application of neural networks in the educational sector are presented.

Professor Anthony Peter Staak

Personalized Engineering Education in Southern Africa

The PEESA project has received funding from European funding agencies since 2013. The project is being implemented by a consortium of universities from Europe and the southern African region. It is currently in its third phase, which is funded on the Erasmus + K2 programme of the European Union.

The primary focus of PEESA is engineering education and how it can better serve the needs of the southern Africa region. The first two phases of PEESA (Programme for Energy Efficiency in Southern Africa) set about developing master programmes in the energy field, as energy access, energy supply and energy efficiency remains a huge challenge in southern Africa.

In PEESA III (Personalized Engineering Education in Southern Africa) the focus shifts to engineering education more generally. While the outcome remains the development of professional master degrees in engineering, the emphasis is on improving the effectiveness of these programmes and delivering engineers who can better meet the demands of the 21^st century.

Ing. Hagen Hochrinner

Dual Education in Higher Education

Learning cycles in experiential education show a striking similarity to the PDCA - (plan-do-check-act)-cycle in corporate problem solving (David Kolb, 1974).

A dual based education involving multiple rotations with the same company offers an attractive framework to enhance corporate innovation processes by integrating the companies in the education of students.

From the beginning in 2002 the dual study programme "Production Technology and Organization (PTO)" at University of applied sciences FH Joanneum had a strong emphasis on integrating SMEs with little or no previous cooperation with higher education. Dual education seemed to be a good option for bridging this gap during a joint effort to educate young engineers for future challenges within the company. Several of the partner companies had not yet hired a college graduate but agreed help educate one through dual education.

The paper presents strategies and methods which we developed and applied to meet growing requests from partner companies to extend this interaction to a wide range of issues, always concerning improvement and innovation in product development and production processes. Meanwhile PTO and the dual students play a central role in the Austrian industry - university relationship at FH JOANNEUM and for other regional universities.

Dual education has opened a completely new and innovative channel to SMEs regarding the promotion of innovation. The presentation shows our experiences in Austria, comparing them with activities at other universities and generating new ideas for further improvement of the role of dual programs as a partner to regional industry in coping with the present economical crisis in nations.