Mastering digital transformation – together and differently
Creating the digital classroom, cooperating on interdisciplinary research, restructuring the ICT or generating countless ideas from employees: digital transformation is shaping the ZHAW through and through.
The strategic initiative called ZHAW digital was launched in January 2019 under the motto «together and different». It seeks to consolidate and accelerate the activities carried out at the ZHAW that are connected to digital transformation and to bring them to the public. For the two directors of ZHAW digital, Daniel Baumann and Thilo Stadelmann, this aim is very much rooted in fulfilling the ZHAW’s responsibility to society as a public educational and research institution. Examples of this include transferring knowledge from research to society and training experts who will actively help shape our future. ZHAW digital regards itself as a bottom-up open network consisting of all ZHAW employees who work in – or want to work in – in the area of digital transformation. A core team of 11 members brings together various expertise and provides a conceptual and strategic overview of the different topics that ZHAW digital addresses. The initiative’s two directors ensure that the necessary conditions are in place to allow the network to function well. «We want to use the way in which we work to consciously challenge and renegotiate existing approaches and structures at the ZHAW,» says co-director Daniel Baumann.
Creating the digital classroom
The strategic initiative’s official kick-off event took place in April, and 200 ZHAW employees offered their personal ideas on what digital transformation at the ZHAW means. The most popular approaches – such as improving the Moodle teaching and studying platform, a new student portal, as well as a platform for lifelong learning – will now be addressed through the Digital Education Services project, an overarching strategic project that was launched to implement a key element of the partial strategy on education and digital transformation.
Interdisciplinary cooperation within the ZHAW helps to ensure that the complex challenges of digital transformation are addressed in research from different perspectives. An example of this is the newly founded Digital Health Lab, which brings together expertise in technology, the health sector and business to help develop strategies for the future of healthcare. To ensure that the ZHAW is also in a position to offer up-to-date ICT solutions in the context of digital transformation, the ICT department was reorganised in 2019. It now works in what is called a lean-agile setting in which the added value sought for the ZHAW and the ICT work needed to accomplish this are set every 10 weeks.
Two initiatives for artificial intelligence
The ZHAW is involved in two new, comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives, both of which seek to promote AI for the benefit of humankind and for a strong European position. The first is a project called TRAIL, which stands for Transdisciplinary Robotics and AI Lab. It was launched in October 2019 when representatives from academia and industry gave the go-ahead to establish a talent and research hub in the field of AI. In addition to the Department for Economic Affairs of the Canton of Zurich, ETH Zurich and the ZHAW are both involved in the project, which is under the direction of the Mindfire foundation. The second is an initiative called CLAIRE (Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe), in which the ZHAW is working with other Swiss AI research institutes to help set up the Swiss office in Zurich. CLAIRE is an initiative of the European AI community that aims to strengthen European excellence in AI research and innovation.
The ZHAW is also intensifying cooperation with the University of Zurich and the other Zurich universities of applied sciences and arts as part of the digitisation initiative involving all universities in the canton of Zurich (DIZH). The ZHAW is supporting the initiative, which was scheduled to begin in spring 2020, in several ways, including a fellowship programme that fosters highly qualified researchers who will actively shape the digital revolution with their expertise.