W.T.S. Ideefiks
Every year, Ideefiks organizes a week-long study trip in a European city. This year's destination was Berlin: a city rich in history, culture, research, and cosmopolitanism. Our objective was to give our members a taste of possible career opportunities awaiting them at the end of their study at the UT and to enjoy a well deserved break between modules!
The trip took place in April, from the 19th to the 26th. In total, 18 students partook in the journey to travel from Hengelo to Berlin by train and ventured through the crowded, but at least culturally inspiring, German capital. We met six different companies and institutions, each offering a unique example of how PSTS students can apply their expertise and the concepts and skills they learned to societal and technical relevant issues.
At the DIN, dr. Amelie Leipprand explained to us how standardization, in practice, is done, what purpose it serves, and some examples of past achievements. As with a lot of practices, standardization is messier than it first seems. The next day, Dr. Friedrich Schmidgall showed us around the Einstein Institute for Digital Futures, where all the interdisciplinary projects realized by the different research institutes that cooperate with them were exhibited where we had the opportunity to explore (engineering) practises and experiments that are aimed at exploring the (digital) future.
With Interface.eu and VDI/VDE, we immersed ourselves in the complex world of technological policy advising, and we had the chance to both ask questions to their employees and to engage in activities that replicated in a smaller scale their daily tasks. That is, once again, realizing that practices in practice are messier than they might seem at first sight.
At the Futurium, we had the opportunity to take a close look at how to present and communicate (technological) visions of the future to a more general public, combining sustainability, digitalization, and society. An added bonus here was that we got a sneak peak behind the scenes to understand better the processes that exhibitions need to go through before they can be published. Finally, dr. Anna-Lisa Dieter, curator of the On Water exhibition at Humboldt University, walked us through her exhibition, shedding light on the related backstage, and on the challenges that organizing cultural events bring forward.
All participants enjoyed the visit to Berlin, and were enthusiastic - although tired! - of their journey. Thank you KIVI Studie & Reisfonds for making our study trip an unforgettable experience. Thanks to you, we could make the trip extra affordable so that everyone that wanted to join could.
W.T.S. Ideefiks van de studie Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society aan de University of Twente
