New website launched to link SMEs with universities
Jul 7 2010 by Graeme Brown, Birmingham Post
An innovative new way of linking small businesses with universities in the region has been launched by virtual worlds company Daden.
The idea grew from Daden’s regular contact with regional universities, Daden’s managing director David Burden said.
“In meetings with universities the topic would often turn to ideas for student projects.
“We’d always have our ideas when the students were already committed, and the universities would always be searching for ideas just when we couldn’t think of any.”
As a result Daden has now set up a page on its website dedicated to student projects ideas.
Whenever Daden staff have an idea for a student project they can post it to the page, and whenever universities are looking for ideas they can just check the page – or point students directly to it.
Each project gives the project aim, a summary of the likely skills needed, pointers to related work or possible methods, and some idea of project duration.
Initial projects on the site range from looking at how learning in virtual worlds is different to conventional eLearning, through making a computer program that is bad at maths, to creating a chatbot that can pass the human citizenship test.
Mr Burden said he hoped the idea could be rolled out to let small firms in the region tap into resources at local universities and put in ideas for student projects.
“Whilst this page will help pass student project ideas into universities, what we’d really like to see is lots of SMEs adopting the same approach,” he said.
“We’ve put an RSS feed on our page so that universities could easily aggregate the projects from hundreds of companies.
“This will make it far easier for us, and we hope other SMEs, to tap into the resources of the region’s universities.
“It will hopefully give the students meaningful projects with a real commercial focus.”
The student project list has gained the local support of both Aston University and the University of Wolverhampton.
Dr Stuart Slater, of the University of Wolverhampton, who helped to contribute to the development of the idea, said: “There is a growing need for commercial organisations and universities to talk about ways that enhance the educational experience and opportunities for students, and the competitiveness of UK industries, as such companies like Daden are a breath of fresh air.”
