On 27 April 2020, the Jagiellonian University started an international project UNA.TEN – ‘Transfer Emergency Now! 10 days for change’ organised by UNA Europa – University Alliance Europe.
UNA.TEN is an open innovation design process aimed at developing solutions to address real challenges in COVID-19 post-emergency times. For 10 days, under the supervision of mentors, teams of students and PhD students from UNA Europa partner universities worked on their own solutions to current challenges in 4 areas:
- How to rethink entertainment and cultural activities during the COVID post-emergency period?
- How to protect our privacy and help fight dangers, fears, and misconceptions in a digital world?
- How to ensure traveller safety while COVID-19 is not fully defeated yet?
- How to avoid food waste on the field level due to supply chain disruption?
The Jagiellonian University was represented by:
- The Culture Team
- The Digital Jagiellonians Team
- The Food Supply Chain Team
- The Tourism Team
The Culture Team has dealt with the sector of cultural events, which has suffered significantly from the pandemic COVID-19. Firstly, they interviewed both festival organisers and audiences. After creating personal profiles and then initial prototypes, they focused on two solutions that they showed during the final presentation. The first prototype is ONE-TO-ONE, which aims to enable artists to earn money in times of crisis, and to provide audiences with an unusual, interactive experience in their own houses. The second one is a specially created VR space – VR LOUNGE, where it is possible to take part in the event in real life (tents set up in several locations, each show up to 7 people), but at the same time by using new technology and personal smartphones.
The Digital Jagiellonians Team focused on improving online security, as well as eliminating the problem of online exclusion by creating an educational program addressed to people over 50, especially seniors. They considered this to be an important issue because elderly people are particularly vulnerable to various types of abuse and danger online, due to a lack of adequate preparation. The Digital Jagiellonians Team have prepared a plan to implement good practices to improve the use of the Internet and new media technologies after the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘The solution proposed by the Digital Jagiellonians Team is a combination of data analytics with digitisation and good cause – it has to work!’, said Dr Maciej Kawecki, President of the Stanisław Lem Institute, who supports our students within this initiative.
During an intensive ten-day period, members of the Tourism Team worked on ideas that will help to save the tourism sector after the pandemic. They developed the idea of SPOT (Safe & Personalised Organisation of Travel), which responds to the needs of tourists and shows entrepreneurs the way of development. SPOT provides safe, self-guided travelling with a remote guide, either by phone or application. Furthermore, the Tourism Team continues to work on a device called Sprinkler, which is an automatic disinfectant dispenser that can be installed, e.g. in public transport.
The Food Supply Chain Team has been working on solutions for the security of food supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have developed a prototype, the central point of which is a database of contacts and easily accessible information. The aim of this solution is to exchange information between large producers and NGOs, hospitals and other processors. One side provides detailed information about the surplus of the product, usually in wholesale quantity and price. The other side buys this excess or places its demand for a specific product in the database.
The project attracted a lot of interest and was an opportunity for the first virtual mobility, so we are already planning further initiatives.
Congratulations to the groups on their great ideas and the JU Academic Business Incubator that supported all the groups from the beginning of the project! All presented solutions will be applied in practice (open source license) by institutions and companies that provide this kind of services with the assistance of AIP UJ.
For 10 days we became UNA Europa Family!
We encourage you to follow @UNA_Europa on Twitter and https://www.una-europa.eu/ for the latest updates on #UNA.TEN.
Text:: Izabela Krajewska & Hanna Gemza
