In August 2018, Catch, Open Entrepreneurship and DTU Fotonik hosted a summer camp that encouraged its participants to develop entrepreneurial skills by exploring opportunities at the intersection of technology, art, design and science.

The Summer Camp took place in Elsinore, Denmark.

The participants worked towards a prototype and a business plan, as they collaborated with people from diverse disciplines. They had to address the challenges and opportunities of the future, as they developed and tested their ideas and set the ground for bringing their projects to life.

Not only did the participants gain solid business insights, but they were also introduced to the concept of critical design. A way of working with design where methods such as design fiction and speculative design are often applied to create critical perspectives, cause public debates and speculate on the future. It is often issues of social, cultural and ethic nature that are investigated. 

The Summer Camp built on the broad range of social and economic development issues as defined by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. It aimed to offer new knowledge, skills, inspiration, methodology and network to the participants, so that they can, among others:

• Strengthen their creative confidence and collaborative skills
• Embrace a new set of tools to imagine new solutions
• Learn to prototype
• Develop and communicate ideas
• Identify business opportunities
• Create sustainable business models

The course gave students the possibility to get credited with 2,5 ECTS.

The 2018 Summer School was a joint project between Catch, Open Entrepreneurship, The Technical University of Denmark (DTU), and other partners (companies, artists, cultural and public institutions).