@VIKO VVF students Gabriela Maslova, Gabija Gasperavičiūtė, Kamilė Žemkauskaitė, Pavel Bankovskij and Eimantas Baravykas had a wonderful experience during the intensive week in the VAKEN SUSTAINED project financed by the Nordplus (project no. NPHE-2022/10355) in Iceland at the University of Akureyri.
Coworking with international students from our six partner Universities (Arcada University of Applied Sciences – Finland, UCL University College – Denmark, University of Akureyri – Iceland, Kaunas University of Applied Sciences – Lithuania, Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences – Latvia, TTK University of Applied Sciences – Estonia) the students have solved a real-life business case: to attract more tourists, improve and preserve the traditional methods used by a family-owned business located in Hauganes, a village in the Northern part of Iceland.
Throughout the week we have worked tirelessly by using the VAKEN framework, a methodology to guide us from the ideas our business client envisions, to a series of proposals pitched to the owners, ultimately delivering a concept ready for implementation.
Additionally, VAKEN’s goal is to train the soft-skills of our students: based on the tools and activities performed during the sprint, on the genuine proposals made for the business, along with a great cultural program, we believe we have achieved the goal of facilitating and improving the following skills: creativity, critical thinking, complex problem solving and personal leadership.
Four facilitators have represented Vilnius University of Applied Sciences during the week: Flavius Streianu, lecturer of Business Innovation Department, Dalia Karlaitė, lecturer of Management Department, Nida Mačerauskienė, the Dean of the Business Management Faculty, lecturer of Business Innovation Department and Laima Paraukienė, the Head of Training and Cooperation Department, lecturer of International Business Department.
We continue working on the VAKEN SUSTAINED project with the aim of establishing a network of Higher Education Institutions using the VAKEN framework!
Photo credit: Christopher Bill