International Higher Education Teacher Award ^2024/25

At the University of Pécs students, researchers and professors are invited into a unique crash course of entrepreneurial capacity building. The introduced new form of entrepreneurship education, the applied process of knowledge, skill, competency, and attitude development aims to maximize the effectiveness of this capacity building. The OpenUp platforms bring students, mentors, practitioners, and professors together who work on various problems during the 1.5-day events two times a semester to find a solution, develop a minimum viable product, and validate (pitch) it in front of an expert panel. The Simonyi Hackathons (named after the founder Entrepreneurship Center) are held either in a hybrid form or fully online through and on the platform. Project teams are multidisciplinary, problems are provided by companies or are defined through the UN’s sustainable development goals, while the whole process is defined and gamified through the OpenUp platform. The Simonyi Hackathon is embedded into the programs of the Faculty of Business and Economics and is available for three credits to every University of Pécs student, may they be bachelor, master, or doctoral students. The course has a so-called pre-hackathon phase a hackathon phase and a post-hackathon phase. During the pre-hackathon phase, participants are working remotely on the platform and receive content throughout the week before the event. They fill out a personality test, meet virtually (via the platform’s video application) to get familiar with each other, with the basic problem, and with the methods to be used during the event. The platform requires them to create their profile, detail their competencies, previous studies, work, and training experiences. The platform learns from these profile data and recommends events, workshops, training for development, and recommends mentors to learn from, all provided by the University of Pécs Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. The event itself brings participants from different disciplines, with different personality types, interests, and competencies together to work in the project rooms, which include interactive templates, tutorials, and other resources. The participants receive constant feedback from the team mentors, from experts (2 online expert sessions). The event’s outcome is a 2-minute pitch presentation, validation, and access to the post-hackathon phase with further skill development opportunities through the openup platform.

Methodology

Process: The Simonyi Hackathon is embedded into the programs of the Faculty of Business and Economics and is available for three credits to every University of Pécs student, may they be bachelor, master, or doctoral students. The course has a so-called pre-hackathon phase a hackathon phase and a post-hackathon phase. The course planning starts at the previous semester's ending when a semester calendar is created. Hackathon dates are picked, hackathon theme is chosen and external stakeholders, entrepreneurial ecosystem members are invited to participate as problem providers, experts, panel members, mentors, etc. Marketing materials and syllabuses (in Hungarian and in English) are created before the semester start. Students, researchers every university citizen is invited to join. The organizer Simonyi Entrepreneurship Center is offering the course from the list of the Faculty of Business and Economics. Applicants are asked to register to the OpenUp platform, which is the primary channel of communication after closing the application. During the pre-hackathon phase, participants are working remotely on the platform and receive content before the event (no in-person meeting in this phase). The online platform has its competence portfolio, which is the member sphere of the platform, where registered users showcase their competencies. The member roles can be student, mentor, practitioner, professor, organization, and alumni. All the members fill out a personality test and create their profiles. From the information of these about their background discipline, personality type, previous work experiences the platform's operator Simonyi Entrepreneurship Center (the applicant lecturers) creates the event's teams. The teams meet virtually (via the platform’s video application) to get familiar with each other, with the basic problem, and with the methods to be used during the event. The event itself brings participants from different disciplines, with different personality types, interests, and competencies together to work in the project rooms, which include interactice templates, tutorials, and other resources. During the events the work starts with PROBLEM COLLECTION, when teams should define „pain points” from everyday life that relates to the theme of the Hackathon and that they believe have not yet been solved or existing solutions are not efficient enough. In order to succeed at this step, students should think about the experiences of those affected empathetically, and they should work to understand the circumstances under which the problem arises. It is key that the mentor keeps their focus on carefully defining a problem, and not on finding a solution. In this section of the event, teams should select one of the many problems they have listed that they would like to work on solving. It is now their task to define the problem in detail, describe the part of society to which the problem is relevant. They should define the interest group narrowly, on an individual level, defining the key motivations and characteristics of a so-called Persona. Defining the target market precisely will be important later, since evaluating and validating the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) will be done from the perspective of this market. (Is this MVP capable of communicating the Value Proposition of the concept to members of the target market?) OPENUP templates to be used: Bug list. IDEATION AROUND SOLUTIONS is the second part of the event, when after defining the problem, teams should think about potential solutions. They should define the key characteristics and concepts of the proposed product or service. It is important that they arrive at a solution concept around which an MVP can be created to model their proposal. The team should also keep in mind their strengths and competencies, and evaluate whether they have what creating their solution takes within their team. THIRD PART: MVP AND EXPERIMENTATION After conceptualising a solution, teams should model their proposition through an MVP that is able to effectively communicate their Value Proposition to members of their target market. An MVP can be a landing page, a video, an application mockup, a concept for an event, a soryboard etc. The aim at this point is to get teams started on a tangible product of their work. OPENUP templates to be used: Persona template, teams should complete at leats 3 (Step 3.) MVP tools are suggestions, teams are free to use any medium (Step 4.) FOURTH PART: EXPERIMENTATION AND PIVOT: In this section, teams validate their concepts and hypotheses with the help of experts. They go through the first steps of validation and based on the feedcack from experts, they begin experimenting with alternatives from both market and technology perspectives. After experimenting, they adapt their solutions (Pivot) and alter their problem/target market/product or service concepts. If they have the time and opportunity, it is important to re-validate after each alteration. Mentors should remind teams to not spend too much time with one expert, it is more useful to gather a variety of inputs from multiple sources and pivot accordingly. FIFTH PART: PITCH Teams should prepare their pitch decks, powerpoint or prezi slideshows and prepare a coreography. Pitch presentations must not be longer than 2 minutes. After the presentation, teams should be prepared to participate in a 5-minute Q&A. Teams should not focus on financial details, they should rather focus on the validity of the problem and the viability of their solution. It is useful to use illustrations, pictures, and storyboards instead of lengthy bodies of text. Among the Openup templates, the Business Model Canvas (BMC) should be filled out step-by-step all day and should be complete by this phase. PARTNERS: Entrepreneurial Ecosystem members, who are registered platform members. Their roles were mentioned throughout the description of the method used.

Tools, equipment, technology used

The online platform itself is a tool of bringing different entrepreneurial ecosystem stakeholders together, to offer them the opportunity to cocreate, the opportunity of self development, the opportunity of entrepreneurial capacity building. The platform has it's embedded tools for members profiles, where members can showcase their competencies and through the built in competency algorithm of the platform, events, trainings, workshops of development are recommended for participants. Other tools involve the mentor area of the platform, where teams can choose their mentor based on the competencies they seek. In the project area project rooms include the 10 step incubation and ideation process that participants need to follow. Tools int he project room: built-in templates (persona template, bus list, customer journey map, business model canvas, value proposition canvas, empathy map,) which follow the team's journey through the hackathon event and the online platforms shows how far they are with their work to be done, showing their process in %s. Gamification is also introduced as an innovative and unique feature of the platform. Participants can receive awards for expert validation milestones, or in the pre and post-hackathon phase for training and workshop participation. These make member profiles dynamic and vivid.

Outcomes and outputs, main results

The hackathon events end in a final pitch presentation. Each event has 10 to 20 presentations, and 10 to 20 corresponding panel validation. Participants can receive direct feedback about their work, can receive offers of further mentorship, offer of funding in some rare cases. Entrepreneurial capacity building was fulfilled. Those who wanted to get familiar with entrepreneurship had the opportunity and those who are still interested can join the Simonyi Incubation Program and learn more details about the problem-solving process.

Lessons learnt

Team creation is a crucial part of the Hackathon events. Participants must be devoted and available, the pre-hackathon phase has a hidden purpose of finding out information about the devotion and availability of the participants.

Adaptability and sustainability of the best practice (for other institutions)

The Simonyi Hackathons are held once every semester in English and are offered for international students and for the University's international partner institutions. Everyone is invited to join, get the taste, the experience, and decide whether it is worth creating their own institution's OpenUp hackathon platform.

Promotion of best practice

The Simonyi Entrepreneurship Center has a website, a Facebook site, an Instagram site, and a Linkedin site. These channels are used to get access to the various participants throughout our process. Every group, students, alumni, professors, practitioners from the region need different channels, ways of communication.

Scope and impact

• Faculty level

Faculty level: as the Faculty of Business and Economics, our mission is to spread entrepreneurial knowledge, develop the skills and competencies involved.

6.1 Digitalization

• Outstanding, innovative, excellent practices of online / blended / hybrid learning
• Innovative, novel methodology in using digital tools/devices in teaching
• Innovative use of digital administration tools
• Digital skills development and assessment both general and profession-related, embedded in course design, in teaching and assessment
• Novel digital solutions (tools, frameworks, devices, tasks to enhance efficiency and motivation)

Reasoning: One main objective of the Hackathon course, event and the host platform is to facilitate the efficient cooperation between the public-private - governmental sphere of the economy to enable socio-economic growth via the development of entrepreneurial skills and capacity of university citizens. This general objective involves the improvement of the quality and relevance of the online teaching methodology at the University of Pécs to develop the entrepreneurial capacity of university citizens.

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6.2 Internationalization

• Outstanding practices of international online collaborative learning
• Developing students' multicultural awareness
• Students engagement in international projects
• Courses implemented in international cooperation (projects, co-teaching, virtual/blended mobility, etc.)
• Courses offered to international multicultural students both online and offline

Reasoning: While digitally developing entrepreneurial capacity, the OpenUp platform also aims at providing answers to current socio-economic problems by generating relevant business ideas on the part of university citizens. With the opportunities arisen from the digital solution of the platform, by internationally interconnecting the participants ideation and business model generation practices, significant intercultural, cross-industrial, and multidisciplinary benefits can arise.

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6.3 Inclusion and diversity, universal design

• Innovative teaching methodology for inclusion and meet diverse student needs

Reasoning: Since it is a hybrid or online course it allows easier access for those participants who have special needs. Through the competency and skill-based opportunities recommended by the platform, students receive information and support about their personalized carrier development path, while reaching their entrepreneurial goals.

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6.4 Sustainability

• Sustainability goals are addressed in the course(s)
• Teaching material contains profession related sustainability aspects
• Special courses reflecting to UN 2030 Sustainability goals, Green Deal - mini-courses, microcredentials
• Social entrepreneurship projects, service-learning in the topic

Reasoning: The Simonyi Hackathon courses have different themes every semester. The international Hackathon have usually health-related themes, (Hack4Health theme: inspiring positive change and dedicated action in the field of Health Sciences.); or to create innovative solutions to pressing global issues related to the United Nations’ Good Health and Wellbeing Sustainable Development Goal.

3.3 Public contact datas

Name	Email address	Website
Anikó Kuczkó	kuczko.aniko@neum.hu	http://foreign.inputprogram.com/?lang=en