During the first months of the pandemic in Europe, the situation with the medical supplies that were necessary to deal with it was difficult. Shortage of surgical masks, gloves, medical facial shields and other items were observed throughout Europe. There was not enough stock to meet the needs and societies were in a very difficult position. In these conditions, initiatives emerged from groups that took advantage of the capabilities of 3D Printing technologies. They designed and printed facial shields, which they distributed to hospitals, health centers, nursing homes, etc.
One of these initiatives that stood out in Greece concerns the design and implementation of 3D printing at the Second Chance School (Detention Center) of Corfu on the occasion of the school’s initiative to produce and distribute medical facial shields to the local community, participating in a symbolic way in the national battle against the pandemic. The whole process took place outside the school program.
Students were trained through modern collaborative methods to perform 3D object printing, eventually leading to the production of medical face shields. To reach the final stage of production, they capitalized on the experience of the previous school year, during which they designed and produced jewelry, the proceeds of which were symbolically donated to the voluntary non-profit organization “Child’s Smile” (Hamogelo tou Paidiou). The benefits of this process were many and concern both the learning of the technique itself and the creation of professional skills useful for their smooth integration into society after the expiration of their sentence of imprisonment.
The implementation of the program was carried out by the educator Marios Magioladitis who published the results of the program in the Journal i-Teacher.
Source: http://i-teacher.net/files/26o_teyxos_i_teacher_01_2021.pdf
The 3D2ACT project welcomes such initiatives that highlight the social dimensions of 3D printing technologies.
3D2ACT believes that Digitization and Industry 4.0 are perhaps the most important drivers behind the profound transformation of the labour market and the way people work which has resulted in an increased demand of digital skills in recent years, which is expected to continue growing. Given the recognized importance of digital skills for an effective implementation of ICT in the workplace, the main challenge for employers is to make sure that the supply of digital skills within the workforce matches its demand at the labour market and enterprise level, in terms of both required type and level of skills.
Social Entrepreneurship addresses pressing social challenges and needs in an innovative way with a social impact rather than profit maximization to reach the most vulnerable groups and contribute to inclusive and sustainable growth.
The 3D2ACT project pioneers to bring together a transnational team of experts to design, produce and pilot-test a dual tool kit to empower VET trainers to promote 3D technologies and skills among their students while equipping them with Social Entrepreneurship mindsets.
We believe that the potential of 3D technologies and printing is enormous for training the next generation of 3D printing users-scientist, engineers, designers, artists and of course, citizens.
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