Presentation on Community Service Engineering

1. Community Service Engineering
Postgraduate course for engineers
Bridging the worlds of technology,
the social profit and the profit sector

2. 1. What is it about?

3. It started with the Cera Award
a) Cera Award links social profit
organisations to students in technical
higher education
b) Students work on a technical problem
in a social profit organisation.
c) Students develop social,
communication and creative skills.

4. What the Cera Award reveiled…
a) There is a lot of innovation potential in
the social profit sector
b) Engineers can contribute more to the
sector if they understand more clearly
the needs and challenges of the
people and organisations their
engineering projects serve.

5. The new curriculum
A profile of engineers
that have profound
knowledge of
engineering &
groups and
organisations
in the
broad welfare
sector

6. Social profit – ‘vulnerable groups’
• Elderly
• Intellectually disabled
• Physically disabled
• Sensory disabled
• Youth at risk
• People in poverty
• People with a different migration background
• People with addiction problems
• Detainees
• Long-term sick people
• …

7. Social profit – subsectors

8. Engineering & ‘welfare’ topics
Directly for the benefit of; to enhance the
quality of living for end users

9. Engineering & ‘welfare’ topics
To strenghten social profit organisations as
entities

10. The history of engineering -(Wikipedia)

11. Examples
V-pad
V-Pad is a tool that supports
people with intellectual
disabilities to be safe on the
road. It uses a cell phone
that follows the user and
informs a supervisor if the
user deviates from the
expected path.

12. Examples
Toys for children with disabilities
All children like to play and
they learn a lot from it, but
this boy had never played
with a crane before.

13. Examples
Bike lock
With this lock, people
with a physical disability can
leave their bikes in a safe
manner.
Requirements:
•Easy to operate
•No keys or difficult codes to
remember
•An easy key for supervisors

14. Examples
Hair sink
A device that supports hair
washing of people who have
difficulties moving their head
Requirements:
•Prevents becoming wet
•Easy to operate and move
•Esthetical
•….

15. Examples
Body Guard
A lot of critical professions in
the social profit sector itself:
nurses, caregivers,
orthopedagogues,…
-> Technology to
alleviate the heavy work
load

16. Examples
Online counseling
Online help is arising in
various sectors:
-Youth Care
-Speech Therapy
-…

17. 2. The curriculum in practice

18. STRUCTURE

19. Blended course
• Virtual learning environment = central
meeting point
• Learning activities are organised
across physical (± 1/3) and virtual
spaces (± 2/3).

20. Connectivist or network learning
Fig.
Pedagogical Learning
by Developing model ©
Laurea University of
Applied Sciences

21. Lessons from Olin
Project based education
•Smart design of project
work throughout the
curriculum
•From a structured set of
constraint problems to open
ended projects

22. Practical issues
• Joint certificate Thomas More/KU
Leuven (30 ECTS)
• Open for all types of engineering
profiles
• In English, CEFR B2 is advised

23. 3. Added value for graduates

24. Added value for graduates
Graduated Community Service Engineers
can play a role in:
•the social profit sector itself
•companies in assistive technology
•standard companies (product and market
development for the social profit sector)

25. Added value for graduates
Community Service Engineers are
particularly widely employable in the
labour market because they have been
trained at the crossroads of additional
disciplines and have interacted with a
variety of audiences and organisations.

26. 4. Potential for the future

27. Changing the perception of the
engineering profession
Many Europeans consider
technology as a social problem,
responsible for growing social
inequality (digital gap),
environmental pollution and
climate change, job losses via
automation
Technology as a facilitator for
inclusion, accessiblity,
efficiency of social profit
organisations, alleviator of
heavy work load,…

28. Partners

29. And the partnership enlarges
A 3 year project to work towards an
international consortium with support of
the European commission
With partners from: Portugal, the
Netherlands, Sweden,…

30. Questions?
Inge Vervoort
Community Service Engineering
inge.vervoort@thomasmore.be
Jan Dekelver
Research Coordinator Inclusion
jan.dekelver@thomasmore.be

31. Our questions to you
• Do you know engineers who might be
interested in taking this course? Please
inform them.
• Do you know examples of technology
used in or useful for the social profit
sector? We would like to get to know
these for our curriculum.

32. Our questions to you
• Do you know social profit organisations
with a challenge for engineers? Please
have them formulate their project
proposal?
• Do you know experts in course contents
topics? We would be interested in
exploring collaboration potential.

33. More information
• http://associatie.kuleuven.be/cse