In its recently published collection “Digital Design@Bauhaus”, Bitkom and its institutional supporters outline ideas for a new qualification profile, one which European universities from this field are to convey in future. The challenge: IT experts today need an increasingly interdisciplinary education that imparts both technological and design skills in order to be able to deal with modern digitalisation projects. The role of these digital designers, as they will be known, can be compared to that of architects in the construction industry. The importance of developing this new career path at universities (these new digital design academies) is also confirmed by Bitkom in its latest policy document, “Digitale Bauhäuser für den europäischen Weg in die digitale Zukunft” (“Digital design academies for the European route into the digital future”). As representatives of the IT service industry, adesso made a significant contribution to the document in the Bitkom digital design working group.
The design and architecture school Staatliches Bauhaus, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, serves as a conceptual model for the authors. Dr Frank Termer, head of software at Bitkom, adds: “The Bauhaus approach was founded in a situation comparable to the one we are in today, where new technical possibilities required an evolution of creation skills and expertise in architecture and design. Digital design academies, as we imagine them, could adopt the Bauhaus combination of university, laboratory and think tank for ideas for the future and – like Bauhaus – steer the focus towards people.”
