International collaboration on Enterprise Modelling and Cyber-Physical Systems, FHNW School of Business

“Modeling and Prototyping Enterprise Solutions” is a short-term programme where Swiss students collaborate with students from South Africa. The programme reacts to a future demand, Society 5.0., a human-centered society which integrates cyberspace and physical space. The programme shall be offered on a regular, yearly basis and establish a sustainable collaboration between the partner universities. This would create a sustainable opportunity for part-time students to gain international experience.

The programme brings together students and lecturers from three different universities. Swiss students from the master programmes in Business Information Systems and International Management get the opportunity to collaborate with students from South Africa. Although the participants have a different cultural and educational background, they share the same formation and interest in Information Systems with a different focus on either IT or business.

The project will develop and run a three week programme, which will take place in summer 2022, starting at the University of Pretoria and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, in Cape Town. The students will have physical contact lectures, creative workshop sessions and the possibility of online collaborations.

In the first phase, the students will get an introduction in Enterprise Modelling and Design Thinking. Applying this knowledge, they will work in project teams to create innovative concepts for new business models. During this phase they will collaborate online when creating models and discussing implementation alternatives. For the last week, students from South Africa will travel to Switzerland where they will have the possibility to work with prototypes and test their models with a cyber-physical setting – an installation from the OMiLAB.