The SciChallenge project was presented at the Swedish Zoo Association's R&E conference
Senior lecturer Sabri Pllana at the Department of Computer Science was invited to Svenska djurparksföreningens research and education conference under the heading of Collaboration with universities.
When Svenska djurparksföreningen (the Swedish Zoo Association) organized a research and education conference at Parken Zoo in Eskilstuna 31 January 31-2 February 2018, Sabri Pllana, senior lecturer of computer science at Linnaeus University, was invited. During one afternoon, the theme was Collaboration with universities. Not only obvious collaboration fields such as ethology, animal welfare and zoophysiology were discussed, but also research and collaboration in pedagogy, communication, IT and more subjects.
Sabri Pllana presented the SciChallenge project, for which he was the Swedish project leader. The aim of the project was to involve more young people in Europe in various natural sciences using digital technology and social media. The purpose of the presentation was to create inspiration for carrying out something similar within the Swedish Zoo Association.
Horizon 2020 is the largest research and innovation programme in the world, with a budget of close to 80 billion euro during the period of 2014-2020. One of the projects funded by Horizon 2020 is SciChallenge, which aimed to get young people interested in education, research and careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). SciChallenge used a competition to get young people to selfproduce digital scientific education materials to be used by their peers. The competition attracted more than 700 participants from 28 countries, together creating over 400 projects.