Summer School in Media Technology

This week, the St. Pölten UAS’ Creative Media Summer School 2020 took place online due to the coronavirus. A number of international lecturers gave lectures and held workshops for students of the Department of Media and Digital Technologies and numerous international students from countries as diverse as Germany and Russia who also participated in the event.

Art and Creativity meets IoT, Blockchain, AI and the Like

The focus of this year’s summer school was on artistic practice, creative processes, technical implementation and theoretical reflection on media technology and digital technologies. The workshops covered issues such as Blockchain, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, visualisation, camera and audio technologies and storytelling with data or in “Teaching & Learning”.

“The annual Creative Media Summer School offers high-quality continuing education on up-to-date issues in the fields of digital media technologies and the media industry to our students and students from our partner universities,” says Franz Fidler, Deputy Head of the Department of UAS St. Pölten’s Media and Digital Technologies Department and organiser of the Creative Media Summer School.

Due to the coronavirus, this year’s Creative Media Summer School was held entirely online in many break-out rooms on MS Teams and Zoom. “Ahead of the event, we had sent hardware such as microcontrollers, soldering stations, etc. to the participants or handed them out. This allowed us to hold decentral workshops that offered practical hands-on experience. That is to say, the workshop was not all about talking, we also soldered, screwed and printed in 3D even though we all were in different places,” explains Fidler.

Studying Media Technology at the St. Pölten UAS

The St. Pölten offers a wide range of study programmes and further education programmes in the fields of creative media and digital technologies, e.g. on Creative Computing, Digital Design, Smart Engineering, Interactive Technologies and Media Management.

Future Tech Bootcamp: Ideas for the Industry of the Future

The Creative Media Summer School was held simultaneously with the Future Tech Bootcamp, an open innovation community-building format by Industry meets Makers in partnership with the St. Pölten UAS, the Federation of Austrian Industries (IV) of Lower Austria, Smartup St. Pölten, the Zukunftsakademie Mostviertel, DigitalCity.Vienna, and other partners.

The bootcamp’s participants developed ideas and projects for the industry of the future in connection with the Internet of Things, radar, renewable energies and artificial intelligence (AI). Students of the Creative Media Summer School participated in workshops within the framework of the bootcamp.

The Future Tech Bootcamp takes place within the framework of the Digital Makers Hub. The Digital Makers Hub fosters a digital culture of open innovation, co-ideation and co-creation, supports SMEs in the digital transformation process and provides a platform for people and institutions dedicated to further transformation processes in Austria to allow for interaction, efficient exchange of experience and an Austria-wide coordination of activities. One of three projects throughout Austria, the hub is sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs within the framework of the programme "Digital Innovation Hubs in Austria" and implemented by the St. Pölten UAS together with the consortium partners Zukunftsakademie Mostviertel, Tabakfabrik Linz and the In2Make Industry meets Makers GmbH.

• Creative Media Summer School 2020
• Future Tech Bootcamp
• Study Programmes on Media & Digital Technologies at St. Pölten UAS