Polimi OPEN KNOWLEDGE Courses

Action Learning for Inclusion

0

The Course explains how to develop planning, urban and architectural design teaching or training initiatives with an action-oriented approach, by describing the meaning, and possible methods and tools of Action Learning. It focuses specifically on the engagement with vulnerable and marginalised populations.The Course aims to provide instructors with an analytical framework and practical methods and tools to autonomously develop an Action Learning project in the fields of planning, urban and architectural design.By the end of the course, participants will be able to:Demonstrate critical awareness about the role and practice of designers and planners working with communities;Explore a variety of methods and tools for enacting an Action Learning project;Acquire methods and tools which will enable you to design an Action Learning initiative and evaluate its outcomes in relation to both learners and communities.  

Managing Conflicts

0

In any social context, conflicts, as well as being inevitable, are also essential for grasping the potential of diversity and for growing as a person. Learning to deal with conflicts in a constructive way is essential. In reality, however, we give the word ‘conflict’ negative connotations and this is often what makes us react in a dysfunctional manner.In private it is often easier to express dissent in a discussion or talk about our needs and hurt feelings.
But the more we feel more intimate with the other party (e.g... partner, family member or friend), the more we feel that he/she will be able to understand and forgive us for our emotional spills.In the professional world , when we are in the midst of a conflict, we feel more restrained in expressing our needs or feelings openly, tending more to hide difficulties, until the conflict explodes in a completely unexpected way for the counter-party. Having complete emotional control is often seen as an ideal professional approach; 'emotional control', however, should not imply a denial of the emotional world.Conflicts in the private and the professional worlds have the same general characteristics. What changes is our way of dealing with them, depending on the context, situations and interlocutors.

Developing FPGA-accelerated cloud applications with SDAccel: Theory

0

We are entering an era in which technological progress induces paradigm shifts in computing.As a tradeoff between the two extreme characteristics of GPP and ASIC, we can find a new concept, a new idea of computing... the reconfigurable computing, which has combined the advantages of both the previous worlds. Within this context, we can say that reconfigurable computing will widely, pervasively, and gradually impact human lives. Hence, it is time that we focus on how reconfigurable computing and reconfigurable system design techniques are to be utilised for building applications.On one hand reconfigurable computing can have better performance with respect to a software implementation but paying this in terms of time to implement. On the other hand a reconfigurable device can be used to design a system without requiring the same design time and complexity compared to a full custom solution but being beaten in terms of performance.Within this context, the Xilinx SDx tools, including the SDAccel environment, the SDSoC environment, and Vivado HLS, provide an out-of-the-box experience for system programmers looking to partition elements of a software application to run in an FPGA-based hardware element, and having that hardware work seamlessly with the rest of the application running in a processor or embedded processor.The out-of-the-box experience will provide interesting and, let us say, “good enough” results for many applications.However, this may not be true for you, you may be looking for better performance, data throughput, reduced latency, or to reduce the resources usage...This course is focusing on this. After introducing you to the FPGAs we are going to dig more into the details on how to use Xilinx SDAccel providing you also with working examples on how to optimize the hardware logic to obtain the best of of your hardware implementations. In this case, certain attributes, directives, or pragmas, can be used to direct the compilation and synthesis of the hardware kernel, or to optimise the function of the data mover operating between the processor and the hardware logic.Furthermore, in this course we are going to focus on distributed, heterogeneous infrastructures, presenting how to bring your solutions to life by using the Amazon EC2 F1 instances.  

Designing and Implementing Effective Entrepreneurship Policies

0

COURSE DESCRIPTIONThis course is targeted to policy makers, policy influencers, public servants and administrative officials who at various levels are interested in entrepreneurship dynamics and are responsible for the design and the implementation of related policies. The course is a joint initiative with UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (http://unctad.org/) which has installed entrepreneurship centers, and is delivering Empretec, a behavioral entrepreneurship training programme (http://empretec.unctad.org), in 36 developing countries.The course gathers leading experts from Polimi and UNCTAD to let the participants:Understand the role of policy makers in response of market failures in entrepreneurial activities.Learn that policy making can play a key role in shaping an ideal institutional setting for productive entrepreneurship.Learn about the Sustainable Development Goals and the role of entrepreneurship in meeting these challenges.Learn how to formulate a National Entrepreneurship Strategy.Understand the different ways through which policy making can influence entrepreneurship dynamics by acting on several domains of interest, including regulation, education, innovation, finance and networking.Learn on qualitative and quantitative indicators and methods which are useful to perform monitoring and evaluation functions.Understand the main logic behind monitoring and evaluation techniques.By the end of the course you will be able to:Describe the main rationales for policy interventions in the entrepreneurship domain.Analyse the characteristics of the vast array of policy measures implementable to sustain entrepreneurship in different countries.Explain the importance of performing monitoring and evaluation analyses of entrepreneurship policies in the related context and the main associated challenges.You can access the course absolutely free of charge and completely online.The course materials will still be available to all registered users for a long time, even after the closing of the edition.PREREQUISITESNo prerequisite knowledge is required.DISCUSSION FORUMThe forum of this MOOC is freely accessible and participation is not guided; you can use it to compare yourself with other participants, or to discuss course contents with them.QUIZZES AND SCORESThe course is organized into different weeks and modules. At the end of each week, you will find a quiz to check your understanding. The final grade for the course will be calculated based on your performance in the weekly quizzes.CERTIFICATE OF ACCOMPLISHMENTThe Certificate of Accomplishment will be released to anyone who successfully completed the course by answering correctly to at least 60% of the questions by the end of the edition. You will be able to download the Certificate of Accomplishment directly on the website.Pay attention: the certificate will be generated only after the closing of the edition. In order to view and download it you will have to wait a few days after the end date.The Certificate of Accomplishment does not confer any academic credit, grade or degree.  

Enabling infrastructure in Africa for the Next Production Revolution

0

The course is part of a series of Sprint MOOC addressing the Next production Revolution (NPR) paradigma, as new wave of technological innovation. It addresses people from anywhere in the world, from industrialized economies as well as from “developing countries” and particularly from Africa.This specific course describes enabling infrastructures for the Next Production Revolution. New infrastructure development cannot retrace old paradigms that are inappropriate from a variety of perspectives including environmental, social and economic sustainability.In this course, you will learn to recognize how smart and integrated infrastructure can support the introduction of the Next Production Revolution while ensuring a sustainable path. The focus will be on digital and green infrastructures that have been recognized as the most effective to achieve sustainable development goals.The course addresses emerging digital infrastructure including communication networks and technical requirements for NPR applications. Furthermore, it focuses on green infrastructures including the field of energy with distributed renewable energy power sources and the transport sector with greener solutions in both transportation of people and goods.After taking this Sprint MOOC you’ll be able to understand how smart and integrated infrastructure can boost the Next Production Revolution by creating a network of things, services, data and people. 

Portfolio design

4.3

Il corso intende fornire informazioni di base e indicazioni operative per la realizzazione del portfolio: una raccolta personale dei propri lavori, relativi a progetti di prodotti.
I contenuti del corso si sviluppano con riferimento a tre ambiti disciplinari.Nel video introduttivo, vengono presentati i contenuti del corso; a questo fanno seguito altre esposizioni, riferite alle peculiari discipline: gli strumenti e le tecniche per la realizzazione del portfolio, conoscere sé stessi per rendere efficace la comunicazione, elementi e conoscenze di base della composizione grafica.Alla fine del corso, i partecipanti saranno in grado di:comprendere gli elementi per la realizzazione di un efficace portfolio relativo al design di prodotto;utilizzare gli strumenti opportuni per realizzare un portfolio per il design di prodotto;comprendere gli elementi di base della composizione grafica;narrare le competenze acquisite durante il percorso di studio e restituirle con un progetto di comunicazione multimediale;realizzare il portfolio in formato cartaceo e in formato digitale;individuare all’interno delle esperienze formative, svolte durante il percorso di studio, gli argomenti e gli elaborati da inserire nel portfolio;individuare le proprie attitudini nella comunicazione interpersonale.Il corso è online e completamente gratuito.I materiali del corso resteranno accessibili agli iscritti al corso anche dopo la chiusura dell’edizione.Altre edizioni di questo corso verranno programmate durante il corso dell’anno accademico.  

Embracing the Next Production Revolution for a new Africa Narrative

0

The course is part of a series of Sprint MOOCs addressing the Next Production Revolution (NPR) paradigma, as a new wave of technological innovation with disruptive implications in production processes, society and environmental concerns. It addresses people from anywhere in the world, from industrialized economies as well as from “developing countries” and particularly from Africa.This specific course will let you understand the importance to embrace the NPR in terms of achieving Sustainable Development Goals by identifying key technology clusters and enabling infrastructures.In this course, you will learn to recognize how the confluence of technological innovation, matching with political, institutional and social innovations has the power to trigger a transformative process of our society and to contribute to a new narrative of Africa that leverages on innovation and human capital for the Continent’s prosperity.Furthermore, we will give examples about the way in which innovation can empower Africa with regard to its international commitment, including climate change actions.After taking this Sprint MOOC you’ll be able to recognize how unlocking Africa’s potential through innovation and through human capital development is needed to extend the benefits of the New Production Revolution (NPR) to the continent. 

Alternative Finance

0

Thousands of startups, scaleups and small and medium-sized companies worldwide are increasingly finding capitals and investments from new providers, besides those offered by the traditional banking sector. These new providers include equity crowdfunding platforms, peer-to-peer lending, e-invoice trading, business angels, venture capitals, and several others, that are called “Alternative Finance” providers.However, it is often difficult for financial advisors, companies, intermediaries and traditional financial operators to understand how alternative finance works, what are the main differences between the various types of alternative finance services that exist and how to identify a specific Alternative Finance service that matches the specific needs of a company at the different stages of its development.The landscape becomes even more complicated if we look at the emergence of new generations of financial services powered by the Fintechs, i.e. computer-based applications, such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, and applied to financial services to enable secured transactions, issuance of virtual currencies, et cetera.Albeit this world is constantly evolving, its basic principles are relatively stable. Furthermore, the experience of benchmark countries shows that the Alternative Finance and the Fintechs are often surprisingly accessible to Small and Medium Enterprises, compared to the traditional financial services. Understanding and using adequately these new financial services is therefore important for both the large and the emerging businesses.The goal of this course is to help participants navigate the world of Alternative Finance and Fintech. The course is designed to provide both basic and advanced knowledge about a wide range of different topics: crowdfunding, invoice trading, venture capital, business angels, legal and marketing issues, risk assessment, the fintech revolution and implications for financial markets.The course is useful for a potentially large audience. It is primarily intended for financial advisors and business consultants, but it is also potentially useful for managers of funds and crowdfunding platforms, business angels and venture capitalists, incubators, business development agencies and associations. It is also potentially useful for entrepreneurs and startuppers, individual investors and policymakers that want to know more on these new financing means. 

Benvenuti in Italia! Orientarsi con l'italiano - Part 2

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This beginner’s course, stemming from the European project e-LOCAL (Electronically Learning Other Cultures And Languages), will guide you into the discovery of Italian language and culture. The main characters of the course are Anna and Alex. They are two Erasmus students who arrive in Bologna. Anna and Alex are welcomed in their university town by Lorenzo and Lucia and are helped in their learning process by Elena and Giovanni. The course is divided into 2 parts, part I and part II. In this second part, you will continue to follow Anna and Alex in their adventures and discover the Italian language and culture with them. 

Introduzione alla fisica sperimentale: meccanica, termodinamica

4.9

Il corso affronta le tematiche della meccanica e della termodinamica partendo dall’applicazione del metodo sperimentale, per prepararsi al meglio all'ingresso all'università.Il corso è strutturato in macro-argomenti:meccanica (3 settimane)cinematica del punto materiale ed esempi di motidinamica del punto materiale ed esempi di forzelavoro, energia, urti e gravitazione universaletermodinamica (2 settimane)cinematica e dinamica dei liquidi idealitemperatura, gas ideali, calore, macchine termiche ed entropiaAll’interno di ogni settimana si ritrovano video relativi a lezioni, esercizi ed approfondimenti sulle diverse tematiche, nonché quiz a risposta chiusa allo scopo di fornire allo studente l’opportunità di un primo feedback di auto-valutazione. Ognuno dei macro-argomenti si chiude con un quiz riepilogativo per verificare l’acquisizione delle nozioni presentate.

Designing Learning Innovation

0

Where to start to innovate your teaching? But before that, what does it mean to innovate in the classroom? Designing Learning Innovation aims to put the designing culture at the service of learning innovation, supporting those who do not have a specific pedagogical background and those who wish to learn the basic tools of a good teaching design then to continue exploring the frontiers of innovation.A set of logical and methodological tools to innovate teaching, finding the most suitable approaches with one’s own vision of the teaching-learning experience.

Working in Multidisciplinary Teams

0

Teamwork skills are increasingly in demand.The level of complexity and instability inside organisations is so high that even very competent professionals cannot handle it by themselves.Organisations today need:    •    the integration of different skills and kinds of expertise into a wide spectrum of professionalism;    •    a broader and holistic problem-solving that derives from different points of view;    •    the contamination between different management styles, attitudes, cultures and values to effectively respond to the diversity and richness of the surrounding environment.Multifunctionality best represents both the potential richness and the difficulties in team work.Working together in a team isn't always easy, but it can be learnt and improved continuously.This course, based on Bruce Tuckman's model of group/team development, will show you the different difficulties and challenges that groups/teams need to face during the different stages of their development in order to become a High-Performing Team.

Introduction to the History of Contemporary Architecture

5

The course is divided into three weeks, each of which examines a specific topic in depth: the first week focuses on twentieth-century masterpieces, the second retraces the careers of two masters of Italian architectural culture, and the third visits some recent works by contemporary masters.Each week is divided into short lectures and, at the end of each week, the knowledge acquired will be tested in a quiz. 

Business for WISEs

0

The course is designed for Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs), but can be found useful for anyone in business as it brings useful insights into innovation and its applications followed by insights into marketing.The first part of the course introduces the INNO-WISEs Project and collects the voices of different WISEs workers. They describe their experiences about Work Integration Social Enterprises world.The second part focuses on individual, team and organization level dynamics that impact innovation in WISEs. Students will gain understanding of important skills in fostering innovation. The course examines issues and challenges relevant to leaders at all levels in an organization.The third part of the course, focused on marketing, guides the students to develop business and marketing strategy through the analysis of market, competition, consumers, and the company itself. Then, it discusses the operational marketing decisions and practical tools, in ways particularly suited to small businesses.Everything needed for creating and maintaining competitive advantage is right here.Learn how to transform, improve and finally get the market momentum that ensures success!

DTransform101 - D-TRANSFORM: University Strategies in the Digital Age

5

With society, universities and labour market becoming more and more reliant on technology, it is important for higher education leaders to leverage the power of digital resources in order to find a strategy for change.This MOOC is therefore aimed at raising awareness of digital resources, and especially OER and MOOCs, as a strategic factor for university transformation, with a special focus on teaching and learning processes.In addition to that, the course promotes executive reflection on hands-on challenges and offers networking opportunities in a non-formal context.The target audiences of the MOOC are: university rectors, vice-rectors, rector’s delegates for elearning, rector’s delegates for university third mission, deans of faculties, directors of operational units in higher education institutions and anybody interested in the digital strategy of universities.