“Green Deal Collider: Sustainable Futures” (3 ECTS) is an interdisciplinary free-choice course based on challenge-based learning, designed to integrate general and domain-specific competencies. It also serves as a key EuroTeQ Collider output at TalTech. The course aims to empower organisations, educators, and students to promote science-based entrepreneurship, with the goal of creating technically feasible and economically viable products, services, and business models that contribute to Europe’s sustainable transformation.

The challenges tackled in the course are provided by municipalities and companies participating in the FinEst Centre for Smart Cities pilot projects, and supported by experts from TalTech’s various research groups. If you're curious about how to integrate science, entrepreneurship, real-world challenges, and co-creation in a way that benefits all stakeholders, this is a great opportunity!

Main lecturers and mentors:

From TalTech:

• Ergo Pikas, Associate Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture. Ergo designs and teaches project- and challenge-based courses, such as “Simulation of Management Strategies in Construction”, where students face real-life scenarios in collaboration with industry mentors. His teaching philosophy emphasizes flexibility and guidance, encouraging students to take ownership of their learning and embrace failure as part of problem-solving.
• Kätlin Kangur, Programme Director of the “Design and Technology Futures” Master’s programme at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. Kätlin focuses on shaping sustainability transitions and developing methods and approaches that support change for a better future.

From Eindhoven University of Technology:

• Gert Guri, Coordinator of Entrepreneurship Education and Lecturer at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences. Gert has developed unique approaches and insights over more than a decade at EIT Digital, integrating real-life challenges and educational goals in entrepreneurship courses. Through challenge-based learning (CBL), he promotes entrepreneurial thinking both in curricula and extracurricular activities at TU/e.

From Technical University of Munich:

• Angela Wester, Diane Baumer, and Peter Finger from the TUM Junge Akademie. They have been organizing and delivering challenge-based Collider course and activities at TUM.

The course is primarily aimed at Master’s and PhD students from TalTech, EuroTeQ, and Erasmus+ partner universities. While students from technology, engineering, natural sciences, IT, and business fields are especially encouraged to apply, the course is open to students from all disciplines. Continuing education learners from the Open University are also welcome. Additionally, the course offers a great opportunity to continue working on the project as part of a thesis or to diversify your academic path.

The Blended Intensive Programme lasts 4 weeks: it begins with online sessions (January 19–20 in the afternoon), followed by a 6-day in-person session at TalTech (January 22–27), and ends with a virtual team-based learning period, during which teams finalize their challenge work and present results on February 12. (See the course TwoPager for more details.)

Come co-create solutions that are technologically feasible, environmentally and financially sustainable, societally acceptable, legally doable, and ethically driven by AI applications.
For more information, please refer to the TwoPager!

• TalTech students – Register for the course [via this link] by December 22. Places are limited! NB! Official registration in ÕIS will take place in February.
• EuroTeQ partner university students (TU/e, TUM, DTU, CTU, l’X, HEC, EPFL) – Register via the course catalogue by December 7 and contact your university’s mobility coordinator/center for support.
• Erasmus+ partner university students – Apply by contacting your university’s relevant mobility coordinator/center.

Course content inquiries: Ergo Pikas – ergo.pikas@taltech.ee
Organizational inquiries: Ethel Praks – ethel.praks@taltech.ee
International student admission inquiries: Pillemari Lilleorg – pillemari.lilleorg@taltech.ee