Besides lectures, there is also training and coaching in working groups part of the VSS educational programme. This year, the participants could choose between the following three laboratories: Academia, Business and Culture. On Tuesday, Dominika Kasprowicz, deputy director of the Villa Decius Association and, by the way, participant of the first Visegrad Summer School, gave a general introduction into the “Labs“. She pointed out that this year's Labs are quite special: The organizers changed the format, wanted to experiment with the extent of the laboratory part. So, the work in the Labs – now taking up twice as much time as in the previous VSS editions – will be much more intensive and is expected to be more effective as well.
Concerning the content of the Labs, the participans were given the following information:
The Academia Lab shall be an opportunity to train writing skills, to learn how to work on academic problem solutions. Academic papers – and maybe “the next Nobelist“ – shall be the output. Tutor of this Lab will be the Villa Decius scholarship holder Felix Kaputu. He is able to share academic experiences from universities in Congo, the USA and Japan – and is able to provide his special African perspective to broaden the participants' horizon. A focus will be set on local space and responsibility. Also some field work in Krakow is planned in this Lab.
The Business Lab shall prepare for startups in the era of sharing economy, shall train market analysis, give advices how to work under stress, how to be continually efficient – and maybe will yield “the next Mark Zuckerburg“. Aleksandra Przegalińska, assistant professor at Kozminski University in Warsaw, will coach this Lab.
And finally, there is the Culture Lab to be coached by Łucja Piekarska-Duraj who is as a social anthropologist affiliated at the Jagiellonian University. Later on, staff members of the Malopolski Institute of Culture will take over the coaching: Joanna Orlik (director of the MIK) and Anna Sarlej. Here, the focus will be set on the creation of cultural projects, on how to transform the past into history and social memory into heritage. Therefore, the Culture Lab is intended to train how to become creative and what does it mean – because telling European history in the local context demands the skill of story telling which, of course, demands creativity. “Our education system kills creativity!“, Dominika Kasprowicz remarked. And she added: “Culture should be put forward. It is not only entertaining but an inevitable part of our intelligence.“
Of course, all three Labs shall encourage the participants' creative thinking in a certain manner. The projects that are to be developed within the Labs and to be presented on the last day of the VSS shall prove this. The first session of the three Labs began right after the introduction.
by Jill-Francis Käthliz
