1. VIRTUAL INTERNSHIP GAME AND STUDENT PROJECTS IN LATVIA U. Vorma, I. Slaidins RTU L. Rubina prakse.lv K. Zunde Latvian IT Cluster PRAXIS’ 14 Open Discussion Forum Genova, 25.-26.09.2014

2. Introduction Nowadays, web-based and other virtual platforms are widely used not only in education, but also in organizing and implementing internship and student projects. Case studies in student project implementation in Latvia: –Latvian internship portal prakse.lv –international innovation collaboration platform DEMOLA network activities

3. Virtual Platforms Examples: –Student Industrial Internship Web Portal (Malaysia) –Web-based intranet portal for implementing Work Internship Placements course (Spain) –The European Centre for Excellence in the field of Project/Internship (PRAXIS) –Multinational Undergraduate Team Work Project

4. Latvian Portal Prakse.lv Translation of the term “prakse” into English is “practice”. Main aim of portal is to ensure fast and effective communication between young people, employers and educational institutions. A further development of the portal is Virtual platform project “Virtual Practice”.

5. Prakse.lv

6. Virtual Internship Term “virtual internship” can represent at least two notions: –working in a virtual team with remote team members –computer-based virtual reality game simulating real workspace in a particular profession

7. Project “Virtual Practice” Support mobility of young people to other EU countries using interactive platform for virtual internship. Platform enables user to find practical placement or internships. Opportunity for the users to test and train their professional skills in virtual work situations predefined by employers. Next step for project is “Practican” for EU citizen. The mission is to help young people build their career more successfully and faster integrate into the labour market, increase employment rates, educate new talents for employers and society in general.

8. Virtualaprakse.lv/Practican.com

9. DEMOLA Network Activities DEMOLA is an open innovation platform and a university-business collaboration model for the development of new products and services. Student teams work to solve challenges handed to them by companies and other organizations. The projects lead to ‘demos’ and prototypes, the majority of which are bought by the companies and organizations via a licensing system devised for the DEMOLA framework.

10. DEMOLA cycle The company publishes a real-life problem (a "challenge") on the web page. The project is commenced and the student team starts working for 3 – 4 months going through DEMOLA milestones and co-creation. If the company is satisfied with the result, it can license shared rights for the end result or purchase all rights on the project results.

11. DEMOLA

12. Conclusion ICT technologies are opening new opportunities in the implementation of the projects and internships at higher education institutions. Three options in using ICT could be distinguished: –tools for presenting project and internship topics/places and managing internship implementation –tools for support of virtual teamwork –tools for computer simulation and virtual reality

13. Thank You for attention! Una Vorma Riga Technical University E-mail: una.vorma@rtu.lv