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As part of the Honors College, we are hosting the Winter School "Responsible Innovators of Tomorrow" from March 6 to March 12, 2023.

The background of this Winter School is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, which require cross-disciplinary collaboration. In order to promote this, primarily students from the Deans List as well as international students from all study programs are invited to attend the Winter School. The idea is to learn practical case-based collaborative working and critical thinking in three phases through a design thinking methodology.

After the anticipation phase, students will work on current challenges in the context of digitalization and artificial intelligence. Based on practical challenges in the areas of discrimination through machine learning, fairness aspects as well as ethical use of artificial intelligence, students develop socially innovative solutions in interdisciplinary teams. The challenges should be as practical as possible, which is why cooperation with external case providers such as NGOs or social enterprises/start-ups is planned. The theoretical knowledge acquired in the anticipation phase serves the students as a basis for developing the solutions. During the action phase, students are guided in finding solutions through consultation/coaching sessions with RRI Hub staff.

At the end of the Winter School, the students present their work on the challenges and their reflections on feasibility and impact in a pitch. In addition to the Winter School participants, interested students and citizens of the city of Aachen are invited to attend. The Winter School will conclude with a joint reflection on the skills and competencies needed by tomorrow's responsible designers and how they can contribute to achieving the 17 SDGs.