For the past two years we’ve been joined by students from across the world to take part in our summer school programme, learning and working with industry on product-based projects.
For six weeks, 147 students from 21 countries worked together to develop solutions to make Canada Water a dementia friendly community. Working with industry, NGO’s, local governments, and academics from three continents, the students tackled one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st Century.
Students explored key themes in design, engineering, global teamworking and dementia, learning how to apply complex theory to real-world challenges. All students completed Dementia Friend training, empowering them to recognise and support people with Dementia, and raise awareness and understanding of the disease.
Projects fell into three categories:
Create a dementia friendly outdoor space where people with dementia and their carers can interact safely.
Develop solutions to enhance the wellbeing and independence of people inside buildings
Harness technology to enhance the safety and support for people with dementia and their carers.
Each team pulled out all the stops (working remotely and across time-zones!) to respond to their brief and develop creative and dementia-friendly prototype designs which were then pitched to industry professionals. Learn about the solutions they came up with:
“The summer programme helped me to believe in myself and my ability to think like an engineer - even if that wasn't my discipline to begin with. It taught me how to think for the world and then how to act to put that into practise.”
Find out what students experienced during the 2019 summer school programme:
“The TEDI-London Summer School was a great opportunity to meet, work and network with people from a range of cultural and disciplinary backgrounds and have an influence on what the future of engineering education might look like.
I found the whole experience really fun and exciting, it was incredible to see how much could be achieved in such a short time, both by the students in our projects as well as by the enthusiastic TEDI-London team in building and developing the program itself.”
“Being a part of the TEDI-London summer school was a stellar experience as I got to not only apply the knowledge I had learned in my degree on a project I was a passionate about but to also actively learn from a diverse and interdisciplinary team wherever our knowledge lacked. Furthermore, knowing that our technology could improve the lives of others motivated my team to take steps into bringing our device to market.”
“Despite not being from an engineering background, the TEDI-London summer school helped me develop and enhance a range of transferable skills including public speaking, project management and design skills.
It was an incredibly enjoyable and unique experience that I sure will continue to cherish in years to come. The icing on the cake was when one of the industry figures at the Open Day was so impressed with my efforts that he offered me a job!”
TEDI-London is developing a brand-new campus that will be a vibrant place of learning. Artwork for the campus should reflect our vision and values. The objective of this project was to design a sculpture drinking fountain, that filtered water from the nearby dock – Canada Water – using renewable energy.
The local population at Canada Water is reflective of the wider UK population in that it has more older people with complex health needs. This project looked at the capacity for robot assisted rehabilitation in helping people who had experienced strokes and needed longer term repetitive rehabilitation.
TEDI-London will be situated in an area which will undergo major redevelopment in coming years. TEDI-London's campus and community will be safe, clean and sustainable. To support these goals, the objective for this project is to design a smart streetlamp that also serves as a Citizen Hub, providing free access to community services.
“I didn't know what to expect from TEDI-London, but it has expanded my horizons. The idea of a globally focused engineer who aims to solve big problems will be more and more valuable in coming years – I'm grateful for the opportunity to explore and understand this.”
