Everyone is a Learner: The EELISA Digital Health & Well-Being Summer School
What happens when people from different disciplines, institutions and countries come together to tackle challenges in healthcare? The EELISA Digital Health & Well-Being Summer School shows that learning becomes a shared experience – and diversity a starting point for innovation.
What happens when people from different disciplines, institutions and countries come together to tackle challenges in healthcare? The EELISA Digital Health & Well-Being Summer School shows that learning becomes a shared experience – and diversity a starting point for innovation.
During the EELISA Digital Health & Well-Being Summer School, students from different disciplines and universities came together to work on real-world challenges in healthcare. In interdisciplinary teams, they developed digital solutions – from initial ideas and prototypes to the final pitch.
The Summer School was co-created by lecturers and PhD researchers from seven ZHAW disciplines, together with the Digital Health Design Living Lab and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), an EELISA European University partner university. Participants worked at the ZHAW School of Health Sciences campus in Winterthur and at the ZHAW campus in Zurich.
Perspectives from health, technology, business and social sciences came together. Participants stepped outside their disciplinary silos, learned from one another and developed new perspectives on complex challenges in healthcare.
Interdisciplinary collaboration was also a central part of the participants’ experience.
“Working on the same challenge with healthcare, business and engineering students showed me how much of digital health is about translating between disciplines,” says one participant. The teams combined their expertise with methods such as design thinking, prototyping and entrepreneurial problem-solving. In this way, different perspectives became the starting point for a shared development process.
The idea of shared learning is not limited to the students. Lecturers, coaches, PhD researchers, challenge owners, experts and organisers are all part of the learning journey.
For co-organiser Verena Langlotz, this is one of the key insights from the past two editions of the Summer School. Everyone brings knowledge, experience and perspectives – while also learning from others.
“When highly motivated people come together, take ownership, share their expertise and are genuinely curious about what others bring, a bit of magic happens.”
Participants also describe the intensity of the Summer School as an important part of their experience: “The program is intense, but it's really good.” Participants invest their time, take responsibility and work together to develop concrete and innovative solutions to the challenges.
The organisers also want to share their experiences beyond the Summer School and continue the exchange within the EELISA network. Further discussions and collaborations with colleagues from EELISA partner institutions are planned, as well as the further development of the format for future editions.
A learning community that continues to grow
The EELISA Digital Health & Well-Being Summer School is a strong example of what can emerge when universities do not simply transfer knowledge, but create learning spaces together.
Students become co-creators, lecturers become learners, researchers become coaches and practice partners become co-creators. Different disciplines are not seen as a challenge, but as a resource.
The Summer School thus becomes more than an intensive learning week: it becomes an international and interdisciplinary community that asks questions together, shares knowledge and explores new ways of shaping the future of Digital Health.