UTEC Uruguay

Mission:

Educate, create and train entrepreneurs and innovator high level professionals, to generate, transform, transfer and articulate knowledge to promote and foster Uruguay’s technological, economic and social development.

Vision:

To be the Uruguayan Public University of Higher Technological Education, recognized national and internationally for its commitment to the continuous improvement of quality, equal opportunities and the innovative capacity of its educational offer and research, which transforms people to a creative and entrepreneur professional profile in strategic areas, for an equitable and inclusive, social and economic development.

Strategic priorities 2023

Strategy #1: Create multidisciplinary groups of students in wich they will solve as a team a real life problem, brought by the society nearby the campus.

Project name: Multidisciplinary Project

Project leader: Juan Pablo Segarra

Key tactics:

Define a clear project and what roles each member (students, professors and local entrepreneurs) will have.
Communication between the team members will be key, having in mind they have diferent roles in society, and normally don`t share too much activities in common.
Solve a real problem that may be of interest for them. For the students, put hand on work in a real life problem. For the professors, to teach the students in real time, solveing real life problems. Finally for the entrepreneurs, having a problem solved that may result into money savings.
Having feedback from the entrepreneurs would be key, into improving the project, aligning it to their interest.
Assigning a professor as the leader and link between students and local entrepreneurs
Open periodically a lapse of time, where entrepreneurs can present the issues they would like to be solved.
Students could present ideas that could solve problems, entrepreneurs could be interested. The best idea could be given a price, as a scholarship or recognition, that would promote the participation of students.

Strategy #2: Give university students tools to develop ideas by working with young people and children on the making of a project.

Project name: Workshops for children

Project leader: Lucía Fernández

Key tactics:

- Design the first part of the course. The central guidelines should be: project/workshops design and implementation.

- For the second part of the course, teachers and professors express their interest in developing a project in a thematic area related to UTEC careers and the work group of university students is assigned to develop and implement the workshop.

- In the future the idea is that the old participants take place as referents, imparting the course volunteering, but in the beginning we should form some references to start.

- Establish the characteristics of schools and high schools that we will ask to be involved.

- The main reason why students would not participate is because they do not have free time. Evaluate the possibility of designing the course so that a reasonable amount of time is invested but as limited as possible. It must be taken into account that correct development cannot be jeopardized by time reductions.

- Define the amount of credits that students will get as exchange for participating

- The objective of the course is not to strongly train the student in I&E, it is a kickstart to motivate them to continue with other more specific courses in the future.

Strategy #3: Implementing pedagogical workshops to work along students

Project leader: Martina Fernández

Key tactics

Focus on the well-being of students so that they make better use of opportunities.
Caring for individuals to generate a better academic and social environment.
Reinforcing communication and difussion to improve present opportunities and increase their use.

Strategy #4: Create a platform that provides students with high-quality, up-to-date, and error-free materials.

Project name: Colaborative app

Project leader: Valentina Egger

KeY Tactics:

Design a well MVP to start with the app.
Talk to the area managers to define strategies to review the material.
Control how people can present their materials.
Assign a review committee for material or errors detected.

Previous strategic priorities:

Strategy #1: STUDENTS MAKE AN IMPACT ON THE COMMUNITY

1-Generating a design thinking mentality.

2-Connecting with the community and identifying problems.

3-Working together to find solutions.

4-Carrying out solutions that have an impact on the community.

Strategy #2: STUDENTS INSPIRING STUDENTS

1-Searching for inspiring ideas.

2-Creating a space where stories can be told and heard.

Strategy #3: STUDENTS CONNECT WITH EACH OTHER AND ARE HEARD BY THE INSTITUTION

1-Generating a space created by students for students.

2-Creating instances within this space where they can interact with each other .

3-Create instances where they can express their concerns.

4-Creating a link between students and the institution where concerns are taken into account.

Strategy #4: STUDENTS FINDING SUPPORT TO DEVELOP SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SKILLS AT UNIVERSITY

1 - Spreading available spaces and encouraging the creation of new ones.

2- Explain the importance of finding balance with a holistic approach to improve our emotional well-being and how that influences our academic development.

3 - Connecting students with highly specialized professionals of the institution.

4 - Enabling students to share the experience with other students (virtually by platforms, and personally by organising recreative activities).

5- Making the student not only a participant but also their own project improvement maker by making possible the constant proposition of improvement.