Last Friday 16th of November, the 3rd and 4th year students of the three specialities taught at ESDA - Graphic Design, Interior Design and Product Design - enjoyed an external activity organised by the teachers of the speciality of Design Management of the Department of History and Social Sciences Applied to Design, consisting of an educational visit to the facilities of the municipal service ZAC-Zaragoza Activa, located in the building of La Azucarera in the street Más de las Matas, 20.
The activity was fully aligned with the curricular contents of the subject "Design Management", focused on self-employment and self-employed professional practice, both in its purely organisational or legal aspects, taught in the third year, as well as in its more technical-economic or financial dimension, which is worked on and developed in the third year. in extenso within the last year of the Degree.
In fact, Zaragoza Activa-ZAC is a successful municipal service, awarded and replicated in other parts of the world, aimed at providing advice, encouragement and support to young people interested in starting up an entrepreneurial initiative, whether it has a social or purely commercial purpose. The initiative is characterised by its innovative approach, its strong participatory and collaborative component and the relevance and effectiveness of the services offered.
The visit was particularly instructive for three reasons: formal, substantive and spatial or conceptual. In terms of the former, because the tour of the building and its different spaces was led and guided by one of the entrepreneurs from the ZAC network - Rocio Guerra, from Eventos S&I -, which provided great freshness and relevant practical data to the information we were being given; in terms of its substantive or material dimension, because the activity allowed the students to learn first-hand about entrepreneurial initiatives set up in our city by their peers, that is, young people, - like them -, who have wanted and been able to take the step and set up a company, whether individual or collective, in order to channel and make the most of this enriching mix of ideas with potential, solid technical or university training and short, medium and long term planning. Lastly, in terms of its spatial aspect, the activity also contributed a great deal to the fact that the ZAC service is located in an emblematic building in our city with a high architectural and industrial value, whose refurbishment and rooms are worthy of mention. It is not in vain that some of these spaces have been designed or materialised by professionals of the stature of the German Christian Schmitz, architect of the Cubit library for young people, or the Aragonese illustrator Alberto Gamón, to name but a few.
For all these reasons, from the speciality of Design Management we trust in being able to implement this activity on an annual basis, enriching it with new approaches and taking advantage of the endless synergies that a service such as Zaragoza Activa offers to a training centre and a curriculum such as our beloved Escuela Superior de Diseño de Aragón and the three great (soon to be four) specialities that are taught and facilitated there.
