This year, the challenge is about: The Future of Work.

The project MAST (Master Module in Art, Science and Technology)* invites students to respond to this challenge with a unique and innovative solution that may become either an industry product or a public service, an art piece or an experimental  design — or anything in between. However, students are expected to present and pitch as well evaluate their solution eventually not with a crowd of fellow interdisciplinary innovators, but also with potential employers, opinion-leaders and decision-makers.

The international academic experience of students from three universities will, along the two semesters of 2018/19, travel through the realms of interface and experience design (Funchal, Madeira in November), interdisciplinary entrepreneurship in digital technologies (Budapest, Hungary in January), a choice of current new-media (art) topics such as biotechnology and (post)internet artistic practices (Nova Gorica, Slovenia in March), and studies of space design as pertaining to the human body (Graz, Austria in April), to eventually culminate at an “Interfacing Academy” event in RIjeka, Croatia (June/July).

In the face of quickly developing technologies and abrupt social changes, is it not about time to start questioning ourselves about the way work should be shaped in the future?

How is work — its conditions, tools and methods — to be rethought and redesigned in order to meet the challenges of the future, and how can this bring about a new and positive European citizenship?

Is it necessary to ask the old questions anew — or indeed to articulate new questions that are truly relevant today, in the face of an unprecedented technological development?  As Europe (and the world) is being destabilized and disrupted by digital technologies, ranging from cloud computing and big data to artificial intelligence and increasing digital telecommunication, it is a must to create a digital future that reinforces and reinstills the best parts of our society, its best legacies and most positive futures. How can hard-won values — like social justice, strong labor, gender equality, and quality culture — be woven into the fabric of new digital innovations?

More on the Challenge at The MAST Challenge Course