The Project

DC4DM PROJECT INTO CONTEXT

The ongoing digital evolution is impacting every sector of our society, changing work requirements, people’s mindsets as well as behavioural and social attitudes, creating both significant opportunities and threats that need to be managed and guided properly.

If we refer specifically to the new emerging technologies, it is largely recognized the need to strategically drive them, indeed the EC has created policy and actions to support it.

Among EU Policy for HEIs, there is: encouraging creativity, innovation, entrepreneurial spirit at all training and education levels.

In a near future, there will be a strong demand for Digital Creative Abilities which include both digital skills (for instance, information skills, programming and app development) along with human skills (for instance, problem solving, strategic and creative thinking, emotional intelligence, relationship and network building abilities). Their development allows managing the digital transition achieving a Digital Maturity that means enabling people to continuously adapt to a changing digital landscape, learning how to collaborate with digital technologies and how to use them to serve the human needs in any field.

KEY PRACTICES FOR DIGITAL MATURITY

Digital Maturity means enabling people to continuously adapt to a changing digital landscape, learning how to collaborate with digital technologies and how to use them to serve the human needs in any field.

Digitally maturing companies are achieving success by the adoption of four key practices:

Increase collaboration organized around cross-functional teams with high-quality cross-functional curricula

Scaling spur workplace innovation, cultivate digitally-minded cultures, visions and experiences

Attracting and developing digital talent

Scaling small, iterative digital experiments and enterprise-wide proposals

DC4DM OBJECTIVES

The project aims to implement, apply and disseminate a human-centred design model to facilitate and strategically guide the ongoing process of digital evolution for achieving Digital Maturity through people creative enhancement, within an EU network of HEIs, SMEs and Startups, Business Incubators.

The Digital Creativity4Digital Maturity (DC4DM) model will empower Digital Creative Abilities through the (1) exchange of knowledge; (2) co-creation of interdisciplinary methods and tools; and (3) project-based experiments to understand and possibly anticipate the foreseeable opportunities and threats offered by the digital evolution developing a strategic approach to the adoption and application of such technology.

During the project, the model will be developed collecting methods, tools and cross-functional competencies from the whole consortium, fostering sharing of cross-cultural knowledge from academia to industry and vice versa. Training digital wise professionals able to drive the digital transformation has become a mission which requires a European Alliance from all the relevant stakeholders.

DC4DM ACTIVITIES and OUTPUTS

DC4DM project has been structured on three-years activities to achieve tangible intellectual outputs such as:

Digital Maturity Vocabulary to build a shared knowledge for working with emerging digital technologies

Digital Maturity Pills telling about the best practices to share with Universities, SMEs and startups in Europe.

Learning Lab training format, learner-centred, project-based workshops to support the skills development to manage challenges through DC4DM model and learn in interdisciplinary environments.

Design Maturity Toolkit made of innovative tools and methods to nurture and connect design curricula with design digital tech-driven activities.

DC4DM Edu BOX and MOOCs draw together content and experiences providing tools, guidelines and paths to work with other HEIs, SME’s and startup, and EC strategies and programmes.

DC4DM Open book and scientific papers as tools to promote and exploit the project goals and results within academia, the design community, companies, and research centres.

DC4DM includes:

  • 2 short term design staff training events (co-design workshop and Bootcamp);
  • 6 events (Digital Maturity Day) open to the general public, start-ups and SMEs to spread knowledge about the strategic potential of creativity and design to guide the technological application;
  • 3 intensive study programmes (Learning Lab) with Master’s students.

DC4DM IMPACT

The application of the model focuses on the relationship between HEIs and tech-driven SME’s / Startups, aiming at strengthening the collaboration between higher education, research and business with the focus of training talents with the right abilities and knowledge needed to facilitate and guide SME’s and organizations in achieving a Digital Maturity. Learners will be able to shift strategically the given process and tools to address the development of Digital Creative Abilities. Teachers will apply the educational guidelines and best practices for the replication of the DC4DM model to meet the challenges of teaching in the digital evolution era. A key impact will be connecting Design Education and the cross-functional open innovative teaching method and curricula based on the evolving needs of students and industry.

DC4DM Advisory Board

A team of experts will oversee the progress of the project and guarantee consistency of objectives, methods and contents in the DC4DM toolkit and Intellectual Outputs.

Andrea Botero Cabrera

Andrea Botero is Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture of Aalto University and conspirator at the design studio Suo&Co. As of August 2022 she will be Professor of New Frontiers of Design at Aalto University. Her design works explores technologies, services and media formats for collectives and communities. Through her research work she aims to understand how collectives come to understand the design spaces available to them and how designers could support more various infrastructuring processes around them. Andrea has a Doctor of Arts (DA) in New Media from Alto University, a masters (MA) in product and strategic design from the School of Arts and Design Helsinki and a BA in industrial design from Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Roberta Anelli

Roberta is a Sociologist and Criminologist with a passion for social and technological trends. She has always dealt with new methodologies for the management and development of ideas, new approaches to understand the market and design the right target and personas, building the proper business strategy.
Experienced Business Innovation Advisor demonstrated history of working in the management consulting industry. Skilled in Innovation Management, Open Innovation, Innovation Lab, Business Model definition and Innovation scouting.
She has a strong experience in social trend analysis, working on the understanding and study of citizens’ and consumers’ opinions and behaviors, useful to companies for the analysis of new strategies, also using AI and NLP tools.

Vincenzo Tanania

Vincenzo is a Director in PwC New Ventures with the role of Innovation Team Coordinator. He gained experience in public and private sector with national and international customers.
He focused his multidisciplinary activity on innovation management, technology transfer, digital strategy, new business model definition, program and project management, business process reengineering and organizational restructuring.
He coordinated Strategic and Management Consulting projects aimed at enhancing the innovation potential of the production system also supporting services for the creation of new innovative Companies, Startups, Spinoffs.
He currently coordinates Nudge for Innovation, the PwC Innovation Programme promoting a culture of innovation and enhancing company’s resources and skills through a guided methodology, supporting employees in the ideation, development and launch of innovative solutions.

Tommaso Nervegna

With a background in interaction design, Tommaso has accumulated more than 14 years’ experience in product and service design, brand strategy, and customer experience.
His primary responsibility is supporting growth and learning by ensuring every team and project is equipped with the best design-led methods and knowledge.
To make this happen, Tommaso has spent the past 14 years working between Italy, UK, Middle East, Turkey, Greece and the Dominican Republic, working tirelessly to develop and deliver experiences to help teams and clients harness the power of customer-centricity to create new service and product experiences that people will love

Pawel Pokutycki

Pawel Pokutycki (PL/NL) is an interaction designer, researcher and lecturer at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague and Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands. In 2005 he initiated early activities of the RFID Lab, later called the AR+RFID Lab, an experimental interdisciplinary platform for research in the application of Augmented Reality (AR) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies in the field of art and design. He is a core member of the Alternative Learning Tank (ALT), a nomadic school and artistic organization that focuses on research, creation and implementation of didactical programs on progressive and radical fields of knowledge which are often neglected by educational institutions. His recent projects focus on exploring relationships between new media theory, political, social and cultural studies by concept development and prototyping for interactive media. He believes in a methodology of design based on his own, peculiar interpretation of the Black Box Theory presented at a TEDx event in 2012. Currently he is conducting multidisciplinary research on “Humane Technology for the Global South: Ethics of Interaction Design in the (post)Colonial Context”, besides Europe frequently lecturing and giving masterclasses in such countries as Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, India and China.

Marco Taisch

Marco Taisch has been Full Professor at the Politecnico di Milano since 1991, where he teaches Advanced Production Systems, Sustainable Manufacturing and Operations Management and where he coordinates the Manufacturing Group of the School of Management. Since 2002 he has been particularly dedicated to the study of technological trends carrying out some technological roadmaps and studies of technologies foresight on manufacturing as a consultant for the European Commission. He is a member of the Board of EFFRA (European Factories of the Future Research Association), of the board of the Italian Intelligent Factory Cluster and of the Lombard Intelligent Factory Cluster. He is co-founder and scientific chairman of the World Manufacturing Foundation, under whose aegis is annually organized the World Manufacturing Forum, the world event for the definition of the agenda on manufacturing. He is a founding member of Miraitek4.0, two spin-offs of the Politecnico di Milano on Industry 4.0 issues. He is president of MADE – Competence Center Industry 4.0, the largest of the eight competence centers of the National Industry 4.0 Plan. Consultant to several companies including Leonardo, Thales Alenia Space and Siemens.

Manuel Zacklad

Manuel Zacklad is a professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM) in Information and Communication Sciences (ICS), holder of the “Expressions and Cultures at Work” chair, vice-president of the CNAM’s scientific council (2013-2018), and director of the Dicen-IDF laboratory (Dispositifs d’Information et de Communication à l’Ère Numérique en Ile-de-France, EA 7339) His research focuses on three topics that revolve around the digital transition and its consequences based on several theoretical approaches.
First, the study of social and organizational changes induced by the generalization of digital technology is approached from the perspective of document theory (documentarization and documents for action). The second topic is the design of new information dissemination and sharing systems involving new knowledge organization systems (socio-semantic web). Finally, the search for new forms of socio-technical innovation is part of the perspective of conviviality economies and is based on the analysis of cooperation processes taking into account the so-called “immaterial and relational” activities (semiotics of cooperative transactions). More recently, he has participated in the reflection around an interdisciplinary theory of design.
 

Matteo Losi

In April 2020, Matteo Losi was nominated Head of Presales Architect and Innovation for SAP EMEA South. This region includes Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Israel, Turkey, Middle East and Africa. Losi is responsible for developing knowledge and driving customer and prospect choice towards SAP’s innovative digital transformation and cloud scenarios. Previously, Losi worked as Digital Transformation Chief Expret and Database & Data Management Sales Director in SAP Italy to enhance SAP’s Platform and Digital Core strategy to help Italian companies develop Digital Transformation paths based on SAP HANA and SAP S/4HANA. Matteo Losi joined SAP Italy in 2001 as Head of Presales & Business Development. In recent years he has held strategic roles in the presales area at EMEA level and in South Africa as Head of Presales Africa in Johannesburg. Before joining SAP, Losi gained significant experience at ST Microelectronics, Siemens, and as a consultant at Ernst & Young Consultants. Losi holds a degree in Electronic Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.