EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel will open the ECIU University XR Campus, and you can be part of it. The VR-event will be streamed to YouTube. Follow the opening of Europe’s first VR Campus on 20 September at 11:30 CET here!
11:30 – Welcome
Màrius Martínez (President ECIU University) and Mari Walls (Vice-President ECIU University)
11:35 – Official opening
Mariya Gabriel (EU Commissioner Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth)
11:45 – The future of XR technology
Zoan (European XR studio)
11:50 – Learning in the XR Campus
Henri Prikkalainen (VR Professor University of Tampere)
11:55 – Q&A
Participants
12:00 – End
The ECIU University partner institutions are welcome to enter the campus and meet each other in VR at 11 CET. No distance keeping required in VR!
ECIU University is all about the community.
Solving challenges together is ultimately about people's interaction, both digital and physical. COVID-19 challenges the openness of Europe and limits the mobility of people drastically. In order to provide people digital environments of true interaction, creativity and the sense of community, new innovative solutions are needed.
ECIU XR Campus is ECIU University in virtual reality.
It is an environment which can be accessed from anywhere and anytime to be fully immersed into interaction and co-creation together with others. ECIU XR Campus provides instant collaboration opportunities for the ECIU University community throughout Europe. There are challenges to be solved together, and individual, agile, flexible opportunities for skills and competence development. People feel psychologically immersed as if they were physically present in the same space.
ECIU XR Campus is built as a park.
The environment nourishes people to feel good, fresh and excited while innovating, and at the same time the aim is to abolish the traditional notion of universities and higher education as concrete buildings and lecture rooms. In the first stage, ECIU XR Campus is accessible with VR headset or using PC. In the future also access with mobile devices will be possible bringing the aspect of augmented reality into the picture.
ECIU XR Campus is the first European wide VR university.
Piloting of ECIU XR Campus with learners began in autumn 2020, and the current development cycle runs all the way to the opening of the campus on 20 September by EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel. Visions beyond the pilot phase are in process, looking boldly into the future. Megatrends, such as climate change, urge for solutions such as ECIU XR Campus. UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are in the core of ECIU University.
ECIU XR Campus is made by ZOAN in close cooperation with Tampere University.
ZOAN is a leading European XR studio based in Helsinki, Finland. The award-winning company keeps transforming industries by creating real-time digital twins and virtual experiences.
Building up a European university is all about experimenting and pioneering. With this pilot we show that the future of European collaboration in higher education is all about connecting our campuses and their communities. ECIU University really excited to find out how the use of new VR technologies will enable us to work and learn together across borders.
ECIU University will change the way of delivering higher education by its ground-breaking and innovative education model. ECIU University is formed by 12 European universities known for their entrepreneurial mindset and their willingness to give back to the society. Together learners, alumni, teachers, researchers, enterprises, NGOs, public stakeholders and citizens solve wicked multi-disciplinary challenges in the spirit of continuous learning. The aim is to transform traditional degree-based education into challenge-based. The XR Campus will be a tool for working with stakeholders and challenge-based education, together with colleagues from all over Europe, in a natural and innovative way.