After four intensive and equally successful years, the federally supported project “Entrepreneurial Thinking and Acting at Vocational Schools in Switzerland – Economic, Social and Ethical Dimensions” (UDH) officially ended on August 31, 2022. At the closing evening, which took place on October 20, 2022 at BBZ Olten, the focus was not only on the milestones achieved but also on the future perspectives.
Reached more than 3000 learners
The project “Entrepreneurial Thinking and Acting in Swiss Vocational Schools – Economic, Social and Ethical Dimensions” (ETA) has had far-reaching implications for vocational education in Switzerland. In addition to the development of the learning program “myidea”, well over 200 teachers have been trained and presumably over 3,000 learners have been reached with the learning program myidea. Besides these milestones, the implementation of the EntrepreneurSkills 2022 under the leadership of Thomas Heimann was one of the highlights mentioned by Prof. Susan Müller during the evening. Georg Berger, as overall project manager, was particularly pleased in retrospect about winning 2nd place in the ENTERPRIZE 2022 competition, which showed the weight the ETA project had gained in these four years. And sustainability was also guaranteed, as both speakers emphasized: Within the framework of the “Swiss Center for Entrepreneurial Thinking and Acting” (scETA), which is headed by Rolf Schmid, the objectives and the contents of the project can be continued.
Prof. Dr. Susan Müller described in retrospect the sustainable approach via the ABU lessons that was followed. The evaluation results speak for themselves, Susan Müller emphasized, because the course leads to a significantly higher assessment of one’s own abilities to pursue and implement a business idea.
In conclusion, Georg Berger noted that UDH has been successfully introduced in the four participating project cantons of Bern, Valais, Ticino and Solothurn, that the learning program “myidea” is available in four languages and that the UDH network has become firmly established in Switzerland.
Afterwards, all participants went to the IPFO House of Photography on Kirchgasse in Olten. The director Isabelle Bitterli and co-director Christoph Zehnder talked about the genesis of the “idea” for the project “IPFO” including the realization of the museum and thus gave exciting insights into the regional startup.
The final event was the joint dinner at the Astoria restaurant in Olten, where there was enough time to celebrate, exchange ideas and network.
Text and pictures: Christoph Henzmann, Communications Officer BBZ Olten/ Sandra Uhlmann, Project Coordinator scETA