EPICURtalks. N°3

The HackeTaFac project, a competition of the University of Strasbourg to create tomorrow’s digital tools for student success. A contest where students take their future into their own hands!  The principle? Be creative, alone or in a team, to imagine solutions with a digital component that renovate, improve, simplify, transform, invent… tools or services in favor of student success.  Stéphanie Nolot, from the University of Strasbourg’s Institute for Pedagogical Development and Innovation, will be our speaker and accepted to answer some questions about the project and its interest for EPICUR.  

1. What is the Hacketafac project all about? 
HackeTaFac is a competition which encourages students to propose digital projects which will benefit the students’ community. No need to be a digital expert, instead, we ask them to have a project that seeks to enhance students’ achievement, and which is related to one of the 8 HackeTaFac themes. It can be a software to help stay organized, a forum to share ideas, a website to study and play, … If they win, we’ll bring them support and training and up to 10 000€ to realize their project. HackeTaFac is a true collaboration between students and staff, which lead to innovative solutions developed by students for students. 

2. What is your role in the project? How did you come to be involved in it?  
Actually, I’m a new-comer in HackeTaFac ! The project has been initiated by my colleagues Alexandra Delaunay and Coralie Bajas-Schaefer in 2018, who actively contributed to its definition, development and execution. Since September 2020, I’m in charge of the HackeTaFac global organization, dealing with administrative, logistic and communication aspects. I also bring support to team projects. In collaboration with Hassania Sebti, from the Entrepreneurship Department (ETENA), we advise students on project management, help them find contacts and information and have a facilitating role when needed. We also work closely with our internal partners to propose ways of improving the HackeTaFac challenge.  

3. What challenges does HackeTaFac seeks to address? 
The main purpose is to create innovative solutions, which will benefit to all students. In that order, 8 challenges are proposed to the applicants: prepare for your exams, becoming a student, imagine tomorrow’s green campus, prepare your cross-border mobility, imagine how to invest alternative places, manage your time, prepare your future, and a free subject. 

4. When is it taking place? Is it the first edition?  
HackeTaFac challenge takes place every 2 years. The first edition was in 2018. The next one will start in 2022. 

5. What is the role of students and teaching staff in it?  
HackeTaFac requires a real involvement from students, as they’re studying and developing their project during their curriculum! Most of the time, the first weeks are dedicated to defining the scope: they discuss about feasibility and deadlines with internal experts, detail their forecast budget, ask for advice to external professionals, etc. They also improve their skills thanks to Project Management trainings or Value Proposition. All along the project, they become more and more autonomous. Some of them are really enthusiastic to collaborate with their peers and propose student internships. At the same time, they elaborate surveys and plan beta tests to obtain regular feedbacks from the Community. All motivated teachers are invited to participate to these events and teams are always looking for advice, knowledge and support from them. 

6. How and what can EPICUR learn from the Hacketafac project?  
The big innovation in this project is the fact that it is students themselves who carry out projects that concern them directly. They are at the heart of the design, and there is a real collaboration between them and us. Too often, when students think of a project, they don’t know which actors to approach and are sometimes even suspicious of the institutions they are part of. We are there to help them meet the right actors so that they can develop their skills. 

7. What do you expect from your EPICURtalks on April 6^th? 
What I really expect from the EPICURtalks is to get feedback from university staff from other universities of the Alliance, whether they are teachers or coordinators. Of course, there will be a short presentation of the project. But the idea is really to create a space for the exchange of good practices, a constructed and provided dialogue. Perhaps afterwards they will even be able to copy and paste the concept in their respective universities!