The fifth DSC session took place on February 22-23, 2020. We had inspiring lectures and passionate discussions on climate change and its impacts, gender issues and equal opportunities, civil education and social business. The session was full of practical work and new pieces of knowledge on Strategic Management, Project Management and Business Modeling.
The working session, was traditionally opened with the lecture of the Core business course – Strategic Management, delivered by Dr. Niclas Rüffer, Senior Fellow of the DSC 2019-2020. During the lecture, scholars discussed the importance of evaluating the external environment of a start-up and learned about external and internal strategic analysis.
Dr. Ndivhuho Tshikovhi, Research Assistant at the Institute for SMEs Research and Entrepreneurship of the University of Mannheim, Germany, talked on Business Modeling and explained the difference between a Business Plan and a Business Model.
In the afternoon, Prof. Dr. Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz, Professor of Earth Sciences, delivered a lecture: “Climate change and its impacts. Observations and projections”. He gave an overview of the mechanism of climate change and projections of climate changes in the nearest future.
A discussion on gender equality, equal opportunities and new economics by Dr. Ewa Ruminska-Zimny, lecturer at the Polish Academy of Science, Poland’s Gender Studies President, and Board Member of the Congress of Polish Women Association, was presented with great competence and inspiration to the DSC scholars who asked many questions and commented on gender inequality in Ukraine.
The second day of February working session started with inspiring breakfast with Ostap Stasiv, Managing Director and Coordinator of VUM (Free online educational platform). He shared his experience working for startups in Ukraine with DSC scholars and gave the groups working on business projects some practical pieces of advice.
A workshop on Project Management was held by Dr. Iryna Chernysh, the DSC Project Manager. In the course of it, Iryna discussed with the scholars how to outline the primary objectives, outputs and outcomes for a project, using the Democracy Study Centre as an example.
On Sunday, the DSC scholars had time to work in groups. Dr. Niclas Rüffer, the DSC Senior Fellow, and Dr.Rafał Dutkiewicz, the DSC Senior Fellow, were working with groups. They discussed possible challenges of the projects and provided the groups with expert advice.
That is all news from the fifth working session of the DSC. We wish you a warm winter and we will keep you updated!