The AROMA project is motivated by the EU’s Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan and in particular by the need to amplify Europe's entrepreneurial potential. An equally important motivation for the project is that the creative industries (e. g. design, video games, movies) are known to contribute about 3 % of total European employment and about 3.3 % of GDP. Despite this considerable potential, the European Commission is aware that the Creative Industries remain undervalued and unrecognized. At the same time, the digital economy, a pillar for the creative industries is developing novel technologies, such as cloud computing, mobile and social solutions that can offer a range of opportunities for businesses in the knowledge-based economy. These trends reflect a need that VET training in entrepreneurial skills should also focus on exploiting digital technologies to help foster novel business opportunities. One such emerging digital technology is ‘Augmented Reality (AR)’. However, many EU individuals are not aware of this technology and even worse on how AR can be used in different business applications. This current situation highlights the urgent need of providing training in AR to relevant stakeholders using a practical and hands on approach. The overall objective of the AROMA project is to therefore develop a digital training toolbox through which the project’s target audience can be provided with training in Augmented Reality (AR) technology integrated with training in business skills, the aim being of fostering a novel breed of entrepreneurs that are able to exploit AR in different business scenarios. To achieve the set objectives, the project brings together 8 European partners with a specific mix of profiles relevant for the project including VET provision, AR technology expertise, Pan-European entrepreneurship association, higher education and adult learning as well as the world of work. The project will carry out a number of activities including: development of AROMA Training Material (for both face to face and online audiences), development of the AROMA e-Learning Management System, a digital toolbox to facilitate VET trainers in their creation of modular training paths, compiling relevant AR in business case-studies, perform dissemination to raise awareness and valorize the results. Through these outcomes, the project will thus develop a high quality innovative educational curriculum integrating training in AR and multilingual training in business skills that is at the same time flexibly applicable to stakeholders in the VET education fields. Lastly, the AROMA will organise multiplier events and one learning activity. The pedagogic methodology of the AROMA project is based on the ‘train the trainers’ approach, purposely oriented upon a blend of ‘critical framing’, ‘overt instruction’ and ‘transformed practice’. The AROMA partnership will primarily prepare course-ware that can be customized for use by Vocational Education Trainers in a form suitable for their contexts. This primary target audience will in turn be able to use the AROMA results to reach out to the end target audience i. e. those interested in learning how to exploit AR in setting-up their own business e. g. existing entrepreneurs, start-up entrepreneurs, social enterprises, stakeholders, business incubators and centres, and secondary to any adult learners, and higher education students.
The AROMA project was motivated by the EU’s Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan and in particular by the need to amplify Europe's entrepreneurial potential. A survey, which was one of the project outcomes and served as a base for the design and the development of the project materials, confirmed several motivating expectations. Though the augmented reality (AR) technology gradually finds its way into business, education and common life, it can be still considered like relatively unknown and there is a gap and need to promote the awareness about the technology. Generally, many experts expects the technology can help to rise the efficiency, could accelerate training, make learning and training more dynamic and could also enable to solve problems faster. Moreover, digital skills and ICT competencies are generally considered as key and crucial to develop in today's education and training. This situation supports the need of providing training in augmented reality to relevant audience using a practical and hands-on approach. The overall objective of the AROMA project was to develop an on-line course "Augmented reality and Business Skills" and supporting materials (the course curriculum, supporting train the trainer course, case-studies, live-demos) that altogether form a digital training toolbox through which the project’s target audience, especially those entering the topics, can be provided with training in augmented reality technology, can learn about its principles, possibilities and get some practical experience with it. A special feature of the course is a connection with training in business skills and competencies, for which the technology may serve as an important tool. The aim was to motivate a novel breed of entrepreneurs that should able to exploit the technology in different business scenarios and hopefully find the way how to use it for their activities. All the materials as a comprehensive digital toolbox should facilitate vocational education (VET) trainers in their creation of their modular training, compiling other relevant case-studies etc. Designed innovative educational curriculum integrating training in augmented reality and multilingual training in business skills can be flexibly applicable in various contexts. An integral part of the toolbox is the created AROMA e-Learning Management System maintained also after the project completion. The project brought together 8 European partners with a specific mix of profiles, backgrounds and expertise relevant for various aspects of the project including vocational education provision, augmented reality technology expertise, pan -European entrepreneurship association, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) supporting organisation, higher education and adult learning as well as the world of work. The pedagogic methodology of the AROMA project is based on the ‘train the trainers’ and modular approach and all the outcomes are freely available from the project website sites.google.com/view/ka2project/. The project targeted primarily on vocational education trainers with the expectation that though this community the AROMA results might reach out to the end target audience all those interested augmented reality technology in context with setting-up business or specialized training and skills development e.g. existing entrepreneurs, start-up entrepreneurs, social enterprises, stakeholders, business incubators and centres, and secondary to any adult learners, and higher education students.