The Digi Business unit provides business-oriented ICT education, assistant studies, an English-language Master’s programme in communications and journalism studies. Our educational offerings have a strong profile in service, sales, communications and entrepreneurship.
The development of education in diverse projects
The year of the Digi Business unit was coloured by three themes: cooperation between companies in the integration of projects into education, comprehensive digitalisation and the educationalisation of expertise. Our project activity took a major step into the future as a result of entities revolving around new technologies.
The role of projects settling flexibly into studies is increasing in education, and they offer a new, inspiring way to learn. An example of a new way of operating is journalism’s Newsroom, which unites Masters and Bachelors students at universities of applied sciences. Partners in the working- life projects were MTV News, the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), the Lahti World Championships, the Love and Anarchy film festival, the Finnish Newspapers Association, World Press Photo, the Olympic Committee, the Finnish Foundation for Media and Development (Vikes) and the National Defence Training Association of Finland (MPK).
All in all, the series of individual projects formed the celebration of the 50th anniversary of assistant training programme. Traditional education was celebrated at events and in projects – all of them carried out by the students.
Number of Digital Business students 2017
The shared study units of the courses, which were also involved in the projects, are increasing the creativity of students at different stages and from different backgrounds, as well as joint development skills. We experimented, for example, with five-day pop-up creations based on the Google Design Sprint model and longer joint activities. Students of data processing, journalism, business and the restaurant sector were divided amongst the activities, which planned digital marketing solutions for Ifolor or built an information model for Katalysti Oy for the service platform for a garden district to be built, as well as digital service prototypes. The students innovated and designed solutions using a Fredman Group mobile application targeted at the professional kitchen environment. Examples of other learning platforms are Nordic Business Forum, Slush and Arctic15. All in all, our students gained expertise amounting to thousands of ECTS credits and did tens of thousands of hours of project work.
As new forms of education, we developed specialist courses for the digital marketing and sales and the sports journalism sectors. These new courses are being launched in spring 2018.
We continued to work for the flexible progress of studies by developing and expanding our virtual offerings, and by providing not only virtual creations but also rare languages in cooperation with 3UAS.
New projects for RDI and working life cooperation
Digi Business projects spread widely in 2017. The projects were directed at the utilisation of big data from interaction during the practical training (GRIT, Erasmus+), and at the creation of new business (BIG, Tekes). We also did solution-centred journalism (the Suomi100 programme) and experiments in virtual journalism (HS Foundation), and developed the professionals’ and students’ joint ‘Faktana, kiitos!’ tour of primary and secondary schools with the support of the Tiina and Antti Herlin Foundation.
We began cooperation with the Nice Tuesday network for IT women, by organising with them the Super-Ada event targeted at inspiring young women of 16–22 to enter the software sector.
Together with other actors at Haaga-Helia, we participated in the eAMK project with regard to digital pedagogy and learning analytics, and in a project supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture to develop student choices. We also streamlined the path of students of business information technology from secondary school to higher education, and supported students from immigrant backgrounds in their integration into the Finnish world of business in the Yritystä uralle! project, supported by the Chamber of Commerce.
Success in international cooperation
Project work took our students of journalism to the Youth Newsroom, which was part of the UNESCO international World Press Freedom event held in Indonesia. We also implemented the InnoChallenge study unit in cooperation with Thomas More University College in Belgium. Commissioned by the BESIX construction company, 16 mixed teams worked to innovate new digital education services and concepts, the target group particularly being the Z generation. Students of Haaga-Helia’s winning team were rewarded with the prize of a trip to Belgium to learn about the operations of BESIX Group.
The Super-Ada event organised by Nice Tuesday, an independent network of women in IT, took place on Haaga-Helia’s Pasila campus in February 2018. The event provided an opportunity for women between 16 and 22 years of age to learn about IT sector companies and to complete IT-related tasks on a fun competition track. The members of the winning team were rewarded with summer jobs for the coming summer. Laura-Maaria Penttilä, who studies IT at Haaga-Helia, was a member of the influencer panel of women working in the IT sector.
