Digital Business Framework: Shaping Engineering Education for Next-Gen in the Era of Digital Economy

12 MSc and 6 PhD engineering students from six different universities were engaged in design thinking session and were offered to tackle a challenge of creating a communication channel effectively bridging international IT company, its industry partners and customers, and academia in the new paradigm of Digital Business Framework. Key ideas generated by the participants of the Jam referred to creating a web-portal and mobile app that will support social-media type of communication between Industry and Academia. Suggested platform will allow businesses to deploy information about ongoing research projects, calls for participation for academia and in its turn could identify opportunities to join industry projects, position its areas of expertise and get better involved in understanding trends for educating future of workforce. The framework describes herebelow the main steps towards stable, successful, long-term academia-industry cooperation. The framework is industry-oriented, meaning that the process is initiated by the enterprise partner.