If you’re interested in the concept of building with nature, then this is the engineering course for you. This course explores the use of natural materials and ecological processes in achieving effective and sustainable hydraulic infrastructural designs. You will learn the Building with Nature ecosystem-based design concept and its applications in water and coastal systems. During the course, you will be presented with a range of case studies to deepen your knowledge of ecological and engineering principles.

You’ll learn from leading Dutch engineers and environmental scientists who see the Building with Nature integrated design approach as fundamental to a new generation of engineers and ecologists.

Products and equipment all around us are made of materials: look around you and you will see phones, computers, cars, and buildings. We face challenges in securing the supply of materials and the impact this has on the planet. Innovative product design can help us find solutions to these challenges. This course will explore new ways of designing products.

The design of products is an important aspect of a circular economy. The circular economy approach addresses material supply challenges by keeping materials in use much longer and eventually returning materials for new use. The principle is that waste must be minimized. Products will be designed to last longer. They will be easier to Reuse, Repair, and Remanufacture. The product will eventually be broken down and Recycled. This is Design for R and is the focus of this course.

Experts from leading European universities and research organizations will explain the latest strategies in product design. Current design approaches lead to waste, loss of value and loss of resources. You will learn about the innovative ways in which companies are creating value, whilst securing their supply chains, by integrating Design for R.

This course is suitable for all learners who have an interest in product design, innovative engineering, new business activity, entrepreneurship, sustainability, circular economy and everyone who thinks that the current way we do things today needs a radical rethink.

Are you an entrepreneur, or do you have a passion for building your own technology startup? This course will help and encourage you to start a successful technology-based venture.

If you always wanted to become an entrepreneur, or if you are simply interested in putting a new technology to innovative use, this course is for you.

This course helps you understand the process of entrepreneurship from a technology-oriented background.

The course is made up of modules that are presented by experts in the field of entrepreneurship and technology. Modules include:

Team Building
Opportunity Recognition
Financing
Customer Acquisition

This course will introduce you to entrepreneurship for global challenges in emerging markets. You will get to know other like-minded entrepreneurs around you, and discover how institutions in your target region are working on innovation and entrepreneurship.

As an entrepreneur in an emerging market, you may be faced with many challenges that need to be solved. These might include scarcity of fossil fuels, climate change or water, food and health security. This Delft University of Technology course will provide you with examples from partner universities and affiliated entrepreneurs in emerging markets which explain the opportunities and obstacles that they faced as they established themselves and created value.

You will acquire a set of practical tools which will enable you to discover the opportunities in your own environment and how these can be used to make an actual change! You will learn how to rethink your value proposition with your own case study, or with one we provide.

After the course, you will be able to develop your value proposition more quickly by getting to know your customers and partners better and understand local values and institutions.

Ontwerpen is een combinatie van logisch redeneren en het creatief combineren van bestaande technieken om tot nieuwe, innovatieve ideeen te komen. Een goede werktuigkundig ontwerper put zijn creativiteit uit kennis van een groot aantal bestaande werktuigbouwkundige systemen. Hoe groter die kennis, hoe groter de kans dat nieuwe, innovatieve ontwerpconcepten ontstaan. Vooral kennis over niet-conventionele techniek bevordert dit creatieve ontwerpproces.

Het doel van het vak Evolving Design is om studenten de onderhavige werkprincipes te tonen van een grote hoeveelheid niet-conventionele werktuigbouwkundige systemen. Er wordt hierbij zowel gekeken naar bijzondere ontdekkingen uit het verleden als uit het heden, met een blik op de toekomst. De ontwerpprincipes worden niet simpelweg opgesomd, maar geplaatst in hun fascinerende, historische ontwikkeling om te laten zien hoe de ontwerpers hun creativiteit en vernuft gebruik(t)en om goedwerkende oplossingen te vinden binnen de beperkingen van de beschikbare fabricageprocessen en beschermingsmogelijkheden (patenten). Veel oplossingen uit het verleden zijn klaar om te worden toegepast in de technologie van de toekomst!

Het vak richt zich primair op het kwalitatief beschrijven van de werkprincipes van bestaande technologieen, met de nadruk op bewegende mechanische constructies. Hoewel het kwantatief, in detail uitwerken van de kracht-bewegingsvergelijkingen niet het hoofddoel van het vak is, zijn mechanische vergelijkingen wel essentieel als zij leiden tot een beter begrip.

Is a good, solid argument enough to make an impact? How would your data improve the stance that man-made global warming is just an “opinion”? How would you explain your opinion on school tests, budget cuts, crime, immigration, safety and security issues? No doubt that your persuasiveness relies on your arguments. But your ability to influence and convince critically depends on the way you frame your message.

In today’s world, you often need to reduce a complex reality to a concise and convincing message. Framing is an approach that deals with the way we convey our message: our words, images, and metaphors. To take one basic characteristic, a good frame engages the listeners’ values and emotions – it is easy to remember and it is something that people will usually agree with intuitively.

When you enter into a debate, you might be faced with frames of your opponents – and you will have to reframe the debate. This game of framing and reframing makes the debate to look like a chessboard made out of words. Of course, politicians play this game, trying to pull the debate towards their own words and metaphors in order to win their audience. But the game can be found everywhere: in the world of business, science, media – even at home.

We invite you to join our journey of learning the game of framing and reframing. You will discover how this game is played, and how you can play it yourself.

This course suits people who are engaged with and interested in public and political debates. Not only people from the public sector will find it useful, but also engineers, consultants, managers and anyone who wants to make an impact in discussions and debates.

Building adequate housing is a pressing issue worldwide. With close to a billion people currently living in slums, accommodating a growing population, and improving dwelling conditions is a critical issue for society.

This challenge cannot be solved with a one-size-fits-all approach. Every city, region and country demand their own housing models and prototypes. That’s why housing design needs to negotiate many aspects simultaneously to achieve sustainable urban environments and inclusive dwelling communities.

This course uncovers how social, economic and environmental factors are interrelated in the design of housing settlements. For this, the course dives into three key aspects that anyone involved in housing design should take into consideration: time, environment, and community. Each of these aspects will be examined through a specific design approach, respectively:

Incrementality: how dwelling environments should be able to accommodate growth and change through time.
Typology Mix: how design can be responsive to different patterns of inhabitation, aspirations and cultural backgrounds, creating inclusive dwelling environments.
Clustering: what methods and strategies can shape the association of dwelling units in order to create meaningful communities.

Software engineering operates ever more frequently in globally distributed settings, in a practice that is known as Globally Distributed Software Engineering (GDSE). In this course, you will obtain a practical overview of the organization and operation of software engineering of this practice. As such, it is aimed at professionals in distributed software development teams, and executives setting up and leading such teams who would like to develop the required technical and organizational skills.

The course covers the subject in an accessible and practical manner. Through video lectures, group assignments and exercises, you will be familiarized with the advantages and disadvantages of GDSE, the practical consequences of GDSE and its technological feasibilities and infeasibilities. You will learn about real-world experiences of users and examples of GDSE applications such as outsourcing, offshore software development, near-shoring and multi-partner systems development.

You will apply the knowledge gained through hands-on experience with GDSE by working together with team members from different countries as a distributed team; and through analysis of best-practice examples. Together with other course participants you will prepare a number of artefacts that build on the body of knowledge of GDSE and so have the chance to contribute to this growing field of knowledge.

Guest lectures from industry experts and researchers will be an integral part of the course. These lectures will demonstrate how GDSE is handled in industry, how decision-makers lead their teams in this context, and what is the state-of-the-art in GDSE research

Groningen, a province in the northeast of the Netherlands, is experiencing earthquakes due to the extraction of gas. This phenomenon is called induced seismicity. But what is induced seismicity? And how can the risk to life safety and the consequences for the built environment be reduced? The Groningen situation is unique and for this reason, solutions for the built environment cannot simply be copied from abroad. To contribute to a basic understanding of the various topics in this field, knowledge lectures have been developed as Open Course Ware by a large number of scientists and practitioners.

This Open Course Ware is initiated by TU Delft in cooperation with Arup, TU Eindhoven and TNO. This public and private initiative combines engineering, architecture and management perspectives. The 30 video lectures provide conceptual knowledge of seismicity and basic seismic concepts. This knowledge is then related to the different structures and their behaviour under seismic loading. Finally, in the last theme more procedural knowledge will be outlined, related to the multidisciplinary challenges in Groningen.

Runway extension, construction of works in protected areas, subsidizing sustainable projects... they all happen within a design space, limited amongst others by legal rules and requirements. To make optimal use of the design space, you have to know about these rules and requirements. When does a contract have to be tendered out, what rules are then applicable, what can be subsidized and what are the restrictions, how to comply with air quality requirements and can a frog really block a project? What alternative designs can be given in order to avoid legal problems? These and other problems will be addressed in this course.

Do you have a passion for buildings and want to contribute to a sustainable environment? Then this is your chance to make a difference! The biggest sustainability challenge for cities worldwide is adapting existing obsolescent buildings and making them future-proof. In this course, you will learn about adapting buildings for sustainability.

This course first introduces you to the challenging management task of redeveloping buildings for future use. Then you will learn how different management tools can be used to convert old buildings for sustainable reuse.

Prior experience with studies or jobs related to the built environment is not essential for this course, but will be a great advantage.

This MOOC is especially relevant for students who are interested in Real Estate, Project Management, Urban Planning, Architecture, Construction, Engineering, and Sustainability.

The course is taught by a multi-disciplinary team of instructors and professors with relevant practical and theoretical experience. You can use the practical knowledge you obtain during this course to tackle many challenges related to the built environment.

Physical and digital design skills are key to practitioners in art, design, and engineering, as well as many other creative professions. Models are essential in architecture. In design practice all kinds of physical scale models and digital models are used side by side.

In this architecture course, you will gain experience that will help and inspire you to advance in your personal and professional development. You will attain skills in a practical way. First, we will focus on sketch models for the early stages of a design process, then we will continue with virtual representations for design communication and finally more precise and detailed models will be used for further development of the ideas.

In the theoretical part of the course, you will learn about many different sorts of models: how architects use these and how they are essential in the design process.

The practical part of the course addresses a number of challenges. In small steps we will guide you through technical and creative difficulties in exciting, playful, and pleasant ways.

How can ecosystems contribute to quality of life and a more livable, healthier and more resilient urban environment?

Have you ever considered all the different benefits the ecosystem could potentially deliver to you and your surroundings? Unsustainable urbanization has resulted in the loss of biodiversity, the destruction of habitats and has therefore limited the ability of ecosystems to deliver the advantages they could confer.

This course establishes the priorities and highlights the direct values of including principles based on natural processes in urban planning and design. Take a sewage system or a public space for example. By integrating nature-based solutions they can deliver the exact same performance while also being beneficial for the environment, society and economy.

Increased connectivity between existing, modified and new ecosystems and restoring and rehabilitating them within cities through nature-based solutions provides greater resilience and the capacity to adapt more swiftly to cope with the effects of climate change and other global shifts.

This course will teach you about the design, construction, implementation and monitoring of nature-based solutions for urban ecosystems and the ecological coherence of sustainable cities. Constructing smart cities and metropolitan regions with nature-based ecosystems will secure a fair distribution of benefits from the renewed urban ecology.

This course forms a part of the educational programme of the AMS Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions and will present the state-of-the-art theories and methods developed by the Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University & Research, two of the founding universities of the AMS Institute.

Instructors, with advanced expertise in Urban Ecology, Environmental Engineering, Urban Planning and Design, will equip designers and planners with the skills they need for the sustainable management of the built environment. The course will also benefit stakeholders from both private and public sectors who want to explore the multiple benefits of restored ecosystems in cities and metropolitan regions. They will gain the knowledge and skills required to make better informed and integrated decisions on city development and urban regeneration schemes.

This course makes students familiar with the design of offshore wind farms in general and focuses on the foundation design in particular. The course is based on actual cases of real offshore wind farms that have been built recently or will be built in the near future.

In dit vak leert de student programmeren in een procedurele programmeertaal en wel in C. Aan de orde komen onder meer: fundamentele programmeerconstructies (datatypen, toekennings-, keuze-, en herhalingsopdrachten), procedurele abstractie (methoden en parameters) en data-abstractie (arrays, structures). Verder wordt behandeld: het gebruik van dynamische datastructuren zoals lijsten en binaire bomen, het lezen en schrijven van files en het gebruik van een compiler. Ter illustratie zullen een aantal algoritmen worden behandeld zoals priemgetallen generatie, grootste gemene deler en sorteren.

Are you involved in the development and execution of technical projects and eager to know what it takes to fund a project successfully? Would you like to be more in touch with the latest developments in project finance and able to use these to your advantage? If so, you’re in the right place!

This course will provide you with the fundamental knowledge and necessary tools to create the optimum financing structure for your project and enhance its potential to attract funding.

The approach taken is both theoretically sound and practically relevant. This is achieved by using case studies to illustrate the topics, as well as assignments that give learners first-hand experience in what it takes to put together a financeable project.

At the end of the course, you’ll understand what is required to achieve successful project financing.

Those who work on infrastructure and industrial projects, especially, will need to have a good understanding of how project financing works and how project investors and lenders think and assess the risks of a project.

Projects are increasingly set up through cooperation between different groups of stakeholders such as Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). Project contracts are evolving to facilitate and structure such co-operations, which has in turn led to a range of novel contracts and methods of financing.

How can you tell a secret when everyone is able to listen in? In this course, you will learn how to use quantum effects, such as quantum entanglement and uncertainty, to implement cryptographic tasks with levels of security that are impossible to achieve classically.

This interdisciplinary course is an introduction to the exciting field of quantum cryptography, developed in collaboration between QuTech at Delft University of Technology and the California Institute of Technology.

By the end of the course you will

Be armed with a fundamental toolbox for understanding, designing and analyzing quantum protocols.
Understand quantum key distribution protocols.
Understand how untrusted quantum devices can be tested.
Be familiar with modern quantum cryptography – beyond quantum key distribution.
This course assumes a solid knowledge of linear algebra and probability at the level of an advanced undergraduate. Basic knowledge of elementary quantum information (qubits and simple measurements) is also assumed, but if you are completely new to quantum information additional videos are provided for you to fill in any gaps.

There is no doubt that quantum computers and the quantum internet will have a great impact on our world. But we don’t yet know quite how. As with traditional computers – we will only see the effects in the decades to come.

This course will provide you with a basic understanding of quantum computing and the quantum internet. Together, we’ll peek into the fascinating world of quantum phenomena, such as qubits, superposition, and entanglement.

We’ll envision the potential impact of quantum computing and the quantum internet.

You’ll explore various application areas, such as quantum chemistry, quantum machine learning, encryption and secure communication, factorization, and blind quantum computation.

The course is aimed at a broad and diverse audience including policy-makers, people with a scientific or personal interest, business executives, and students at all levels.

We invite you on a journey beyond what is known to us now, and to envision a world with quantum technologies.

This journey will continue in a second course planned for May 2018, where we will expand from an understanding of the building blocks of Quantum Computers to look at further applications and possibilities.

This course is authored by experts from the QuTech research center at Delft University of Technology. In the center scientists and engineers work together to enhance research and development in quantum technology. QuTech Academy’s aim is to inspire, share and disseminate knowledge about the latest developments in quantum technology.

Innovation may bring a lot of good to society, but innovation is not a good in itself. History provides many examples of new technologies that have had serious negative consequences or that simply just failed to address significant societal challenges.

This course discusses the concept of responsible innovation, its meaning and its significance by addressing the societal implications of new technologies and showing how we might incorporate ethical considerations into technical innovations.

In this course, we will:
discuss the concept of responsible innovation, the individual and collective responsibility and the ethical issues regarding innovation
discuss tools and approaches to responsible innovation, like Value Sensitive Design (VSD)
investigate the economic aspects of responsible innovation
introduce constructive technology assessment
elucidate the relation between risk and responsible innovation
We will do so on the basis of technological case studies. Cases that will be discussed are, among others, nanotechnology, offshore wind parks, Google car, nuclear power, cloud computing, smart meters for electricity, robots in the care sector (carebots), low budget meteorological weather stations in Africa and CO2 capture and storage.

During the course you may team-up with your fellow students to discuss the case studies in an international context. Moreover, students are encouraged to bring their own cases in dedicated discussion fora.

This course is for all those interested in the relationship between technological innovations, ethics and society. It is especially relevant for industry, public, and academic professionals working on developing innovative technologies and students following a traditional technical curriculum who are interested in key value questions attached to their studies.

You’ll learn about today’s urban challenges focusing on developing countries, referred to as the global south. We will debate the benefits of three pathways, going beyond traditional urban strategies and policies:

1. Spatial justice

Spatial justice is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges of urban contexts in emerging economies.

2. Housing Provision and Management

Increasing demand in the global south calls for alternative approaches in housing provision and management.

3. Urban Resilience

Understanding resilience not as a mere struggle for survival, but as an opportunity to build better urban environments.

We will discuss question such as:

Is the just city framework applicable in cities with extreme socio-economic inequality?
Can community-led housing initiatives provide effective solutions for households in need?
How can resilience support development instead of perpetuating a disadvantaged condition?