Inclusive education on low-tech for a sustainable future

"<< Background >>Following an increasing awareness of society, the youth in particular, regarding environmental and climate challenges as well as a demand for social justice, higher education institutions need to align their pedagogical strategy to prepare future executives and decision-makers to efficiently deal with these challenges. The LT4SUSTAIN addressed the need to raise awareness about low-tech(s) and empower learners, teachers, researchers and practitioners to find sustainable solutions to current and future societal needs. The project addressed in particular the need for higher education students to understand resource depletion, environmental challenges, and the development of sustainable solutions based on the needs of our current societies. Societal change can be triggered through the development of innovative, multidisciplinary, and territory-anchored low-tech education. By adopting the LowTech framework and encompassing its three pillars: usefulness, accessibility, and sustainability of technology, LT4Sustain generates knowledge that will enable society to generate ideas and future technologies leading to minimal resource and energy consumption, responding to needs, and moving towards a transition to sustainability. << Objectives >>LT4SUSTAIN’s objective was to raise awareness of low-tech among European teachers and students through open hackathons and to provide them with the skills to undertake entrepreneurial adventures on sustainable solutions. Our objectives included improving students' awareness of the low-tech ecosystem, aligning education with resource, environmental, and climate challenges, and designing replicable territorialised hackathons. All of that while improving inclusiveness in the design and appropriation of technology, facilitating LowTech knowledge established in educational modules and supporting entrepreneurship in frugal innovation and ecological transition. The collaboration among the partners of the project ensured the appropriation of LowTech open knowledge topics for established innovation/entrepreneurship courses and teachers taking into account different cultural contexts in Europe. LT4SUSTAIN opens the discussion on sustainable design and the role of entrepreneurship towards an ecological just transition. The LowTech Handbook produced, proposes a framework to address the current socio-ecological challenges with sustainable societal and technological solutions based on a model of strong sustainability. << Implementation >>The main activity of LT4Sustain was the successful implementation of an open European LowTech Hackathon for students from different socioeconomic, cultural, epistemological and language backgrounds. Such activity was an intense week of learning, designing and proposing LowTech solutions to real problems in the city of Chalons-en-Champagne. The problems were identified after a long process of sociological analysis of the city. After a few months, since we established the first contact with the city, we were really to provide the participants of the hackathon with the contact of the different territorial actors of Chalons-en-Champagne. In collaboration with the city administration, the metropolis administration, non-profit associations, education institutions, local businesses and citizens, we were able to generate a safe space for the participants of the hackathon to freely explore, analyse and provide solutions to different challenges in the city. The students had to propose their solutions in front of a jury that chose the best solutions. The jury was made of experts on LowTech, and local stakeholders from different sectors of society. The European Hackathon was paired with a Multiplier Event, for which we brought 11 high-level academics, practitioners and experts on the development of LowTech to give talks, workshops and keynotes on different approaches to the LowTech framework. Both activities were open to the general public for free. With more than 200 participants during the 8-day event, we successfully triggered discussions, projects and positive changes in the metropolis of Chalons-en-Champagne. We also organised 3 more multiplier events (ME) in the city of Grenoble to gather feedback from the participants of the work we were producing at the time. The first ME was dedicated to gathering feedback on the first analysis of the literature and best LowTech practices we considered as the pathway for the development of our pedagogical tools. The event was held in a hybrid form and helped us define the gaps we had in our analysis. As a result of the ME, we managed to establish a panel of external reviewers, that later on revised and gave us feedback on the work we were doing. The second ME was a hybrid event focused on gathering the feedback of our reviewing panel and external stakeholders of society on the pedagogical modules, that then became the chapters of our LowTech Handbook. The event was crucial to finishing the design of the modules. The third ME was held at the end of the project, in order to disseminate the results and gather potential new pathways to continue developing research in education towards a LowTech approach, and the next steps after the end of the project. We held 4 local hackathons during the project, one in U Mons, one at TU Dublin, one in ENSE3 and one at UTT. Those local hackathons provided different kinds of feedback from the students participating. It helped us test our methods, frameworks and delivery of the chosen activities. Those activities also provided clues on how to integrate the LowTech framework in the existing curricula of students of different disciplines (engineering, design and management) and education levels (bachelor and master). << Results >>We completed all 4 Project Results (PR) by the end of the project.PR1: ""End-users requirements analysis"", we provide an analysis of the integration of LowTech in different sectors of society (teachers, students, and local companies) We conducted surveys and interviews to reveal the level of comprehension of the participants regarding LowTech, their vision in the practice of LowTech in their economic activities, and the gaps of the LowTech framework when contrasted to the 'real' problems of society. Such analysis helped us construct and choose the competencies and skills desired to be developed to integrate the LowTech framework in different sectors and activities. PR1 informed the development of PR2 and PR3. PR2: ""Replicable pedagogical methodology for low-tech education"", consists of the design of a replicable and transferable pedagogical methodology for LowTech in higher education. This methodology comprises the complete structure and organisation of a replicable LowTech Hackathon using the educational modules described in our LowTech handbook. This document describes the pedagogical parameters and methods of mind mapping chosen to build the methodology to teach LowTech in the higher education sphere. We describe the methodology we use and recommend. The intention is that teachers could replicate the experience of the hackathon, and include the modules in their curricula. PR3: ""Tailored higher education pedagogical material on low-techs"", the document containing the proposed syllabus and content for teaching the LowTech principles. The output is the reflection of the established collaboration between the project partners, making it easily replicable in multiple pedagogical contexts (different disciplines and levels of education). The PR3 is the main contribution of the project. It takes the form of a Handbook on LowTech education called 'Lessons in Low-Tech, a handbook for sustainable education. It consists of 10 chapters containing what we consider the essential knowledge to address the education of LowTech. With almost 300 pages, available for free (digitally) and also available as 'print and demand', the handbook contains all the expertise gathered during the project. We created a 'community' using Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/communities/lt4sustain/) where we have uploaded all the pedagogical material produced by LT4Sustain. PR4: « Implementation of the courses in partner Higher Education Institutions » consists of the know-how for implementing the content developed in the project. It focuses on the establishment of a territorialised Hackathon as the method to practice the knowledge learned from PR3 (and beyond). PR4 addresses questions of inclusion, transdisciplinarity, engagement and good practices when it comes to organising an event such as a European Hackathon. PR4 should serve as a guideline for groups that want to propose a territorialized hackathon as an evaluation and assessment method for LowTech knowledge and practice. Two scientific articles have been accepted to be presented at the 27th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education, to be held on the 11th and 12th of September 2025, in Malta: - How do we encourage the lowest appropriate level of technology to solve human needs in our design solutions by Ceri ALMROTT and Santiago PEREZ. - Objects becoming subjects of care: integration of Emotionally Durable Design strategies for a careful sustainability by Santiago PEREZ A toolkit of cards has been developed. The objective is to use it in class activities to trigger reflections on the process of 'LowTechnisation of objects'. This tackles directly the challenges of sustainability integrated into the design practice. The cards were developed by Ceri ALMROTT. We also created a ZIne (a small magazine produced using the least resources possible). An inclusion chapter, as well as an ethics chapter, were produced as deliverables of the project. For each chapter of the Handbook 'Lessons in Low-Tech, a Handbook for Sustainable Education', there are pedagogical activities proposed to teach the content. This includes series of recommended bibliography as well as full PowerPoint presentations that are editable. All results from the project are open source and easily accessible online."