SMART PRACTICE seminar held at Lapland UAS - Empowering Entrepreneurial Skills in Higher Education -

There are 6 partners of this project: the project coordinator is Kaunas Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Crafts from Lithuania, partners from Vytautas Magnus university, Lithuania; The European University Cyprus, Cyprus; Consulting and training organization Eurosuccess Consulting, Cyprus; Lapland University of Applied Sciences, Finland and the University of Verona, Italy.

SMART Practice Seminar on 29th of September 2016

The project is based on innovative approaches to internships and that was the main topic of this seminar. Program of the seminar was divided into 2 parts. First part was in the morning and consisted of presentations from 5 different speakers.

The first speaker was Anželika Krastina who explained what is the SMART Practice and introduced the program and aim of the seminar. Students were provided with more information about the project and its main goals.

The second presentation was about InnoBarentsLab which is a unit at Lapland UAS and a community which aims to promote innovative entrepreneurship among young people across the border of the Arctic Barents region. It was presented by current IBL leader – Nina Niskala and current Marketing leader – Laura Ukkola.

The third speaker was Thomas Draper who had presentation which was called Practice your Work – Work your Practice. As current student of Lapland UAS and entrepreneur at the same time his speech was really inspiring for the participants encouraging to practice entrepreneurship skills in own business during the studies and practical training.

Fourth speech at the program was by Denis Ivanov who was talking about the SantaPark OY case but also about his own experiences connected with practical training. The presentation was motivating students to prepare for the future employment.

Last speaker during the seminar was Eija Raasakka with her presentation about “Safety Cluster” project. The importance of safety and security in every business was shown with examples of tools used to achieve this goals in real life. Eija also presented the company´s point of view on trainees in general and her experiences with trainees during their practical trainings.

Second part was held in the afternoon hosted by InnoBarentsLab. The main aim was to create new innovative possibilities to develop better methods of practical trainings for students, improve relationships and demands between companies and trainees during their training periods. The best way how to achieve the best results was by connecting students, teachers and entrepreneurs during Learning Café workshop. The results were brilliant - more than 100 ideas in only 45 minutes of the Learning Café.

Written by Katarina, trainee Holla and Anzelika Krastina, project manager
Pictures by Katarina Holla

Sharing ideas of new innovative internship methodology developed in cooperation between international project partners and students was the goal of the seminar and it was achieved.