Full STEAM Ahead kick off meeting held

13. 07. 2022. / Event
On Wednesday, the 13th July 2022, Full STEAM Ahead kick off project meeting was held in the 2nd elementary school Varaždin. The project acronym “Full STEAM Ahead” stands for “Science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics in the 2nd elementary school Varaždin”.

The project coordinator is the 2nd elementary school Varaždin, while the partners are the Faculty of Organization and NT Gruppen AS from the Kingdom of Norway.

This project worth 3,3 million HRK is set to establish the first STEAM elementary school in the Varaždin County. Since the main objective of the project is to transform the 2nd elementary school Varaždin into a STEAM education leader in the northwest Croatia, additional objectives set to be achieved are an innovative approach to the education of special needs students based on gamification, artificial intelligence and augmented reality and a newly equipped multifunctional STEAM space on the premises of the 2nd elementary school Varaždin. 

Welcoming speeches were held by the headteacher at the 2nd elementary school Varaždin, Sanja Posavec, M.A., the mayor of Varaždin, Nevel Bosilj, Ph.D. and Assoc. Prof. Igor Balaban, Ph.D., Vice-Dean for Science, Projects and International Cooperation at the Faculty of Organization and Informatics. Furthermore, project activities were shortly introduced by the team leader at FOI, Assoc. Prof. Markus Schatten, Ph.D. and the representative of the NT Gruppen AS, Branimir Simic, M.D. 

The Faculty of Organization and Informatics will have an important role during the second phase of the project – it will provide the necessary infrastructure and equipment for teacher education and training. The teachers from the 2nd elementary school Varaždin are going to improve their competencies through education in the field of gamification and cognitive agent use under the leadership of Norwegian experts and Assoc. Prof. Markus Schatten, Ph.D., the Head of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Other FOI team members are Assoc. Prof. Igor Balaban, Ph.D., Full Prof. Nina Begičević Ređep, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. Goran Hajdin, Ph.D., Bogdan Okreša Đurić, Ph.D., Tomislav Peharda, M.Inf., Asst.Prof. Boris Tomaš, Ph.D. and Asst.Prof. Igor Tomičić, Ph.D.

The duration of the project is 21 months, from the 1st Jul 2022 till the 30th Mar 2024. 

The project is financed by the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. The total budget is 3.344.621,39 HRK and 567.887,19 HRK is FOI’s stake. 

You can see how the meeting went in the gallery. 

STEAM kick off

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Project