Wholesome Living 2022

Build new products and services for the future of wholesome living, while advancing with your study degree!

The Cluster for Digital Innovation and the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich together with the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) / Interaction Design offer you a unique and exciting opportunity to innovate in a setting involving science, industry, business and the public. The project accelerates digital innovation by providing an environment for students and practitioners to connect and collaborate on questions and challenges with societal relevance.

Create actionable solutions to enable people to achieve their long-term goals and live happier and healthier lives!

How to live a healthy and happy life has become a very relevant question in our interconnected and industrialized world. Many people feel anxious about the future and are looking for support in a digital world.

The project focuses on managing and exploring life-long data around physical and mental health, personal finances, retirement planning with a strong community support structure.

Imagine building a data infrastructure, developed as a mobile app, that allows individuals and institutions / organizations to mutually benefit from personal data and analysis, all within a consent-based and trustworthy framework. 

Individuals give access to their personal data → The Data Ecosystem analyses the data and offers advice and / or solutions for the individuals needs.

Possible scenarios:

1. My Happy Retirement & Smooth Financial Companion: Retirement planning, risk management, savings and investments, in combination with fitness, health, or nutrition data.
2. My Sustainable Lifestyle: Sustainable lifestyle, in comparison, as a recommendation system, reactive or proactive planning.
3. Me Living Well: active management of individual healthy aging with multi-domain federated data, tuned and evaluated for the individual.

• Motivated Master students from all UZH faculties, who want to participate in a solution-building project or who want to write their Master’s thesis or study project.
• Motivated Interaction Designers (BA 5th and / or 6th semester, MA 2nd and / or 3rd semester) from ZHdK, who want to work on this project or write their Bachelor’s or Master's thesis or study project.

If you wish to not just write a thesis, but also walk away with newly acquired skills in entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and fundraising, this project is a unique opportunity for you!

The University provides a small budget and you will get project support from Coaches, Mentors and Industry Partners.

In terms of technologies, this will involve, but not be limited to:

• Building Android or iOS Apps
• Privacy and data protection, cryptography
• Machine learning on multi-source and multi-structured data
• Decentralized data infrastructures
• Augmented Reality
• Data visualization
• Physical structures to immerse users and communities

• Be part of a well-funded innovation project involving multiple industry partners. 
• Team up with up to 10 other students from across different UZH faculties and ZHdK Interaction Designers and work in an interdisciplinary team.
• Work in an entrepreneurial setup, starting Mid September for 9-12 months.
• Expand your personal network and build relationships with potential future employers.
• Put your skills into action for a future-oriented project.
• Broaden your horizon and expand your knowledge.
• UZH Master students: Gain up to 30 ECTS for your Master's thesis plus study project depending on the rules of your faculty.
• ZHdK Bachelor students: Gain 10 ECTS in the 5th semester, and in case of writing a Bachelor’s thesis on the topic further 4 ECTS at the end of 5th and additional 28 ECTS in the 6th semester.
• ZHdK Master students: Gain 4 ECTS in the 2nd semester, and in case of writing a Master's thesis on the topic further 4 ECTS at the end of 2th and additional 24 ECTS in the 3rd semester.

Deadline extended - Apply until July 6th!

Upload your CV and a Motivation letter.

• UZH Master Students: Please mention your desired study framework in your motivation letter (e.g. MSc/MA thesis or MSc/MA project) and the professor in your department/seminar, that you would like to work with).
• ZHdK BA & MA Interaction Designers: Please mention your desired study framework in your motivation letter (e.g. Bachelor's thesis, Bachelor project, Master's thesis or Master project).

Application form

• Please apply until July 6th. 
• UZH: We will contact your faculty and professor to discuss the ECTS credits you can gain for working on this Innovation Project. You will hear back from us within a few weeks and if selected you will be invited for an interview in July (the interviews will take place on July 7th, 18th and 19th).
• ZHdK: Your application will be forwarded to Prof. Jürgen Späth, who will interview and select the students, working on this project.