Innovation Project

Your task. Our students. Real results in just a few months.

In the Innovation Project, OST computer science students work on a real task for two to four months – at your company or in your open-source project.

The focus is on results, not a report: students are assessed on their project plan, implementation, abstract, social media posts and a pitch at the final event. Each project is supervised by an OST advisor. The module is supported by the IFS Institute for Software and the INS Institute for Networks and Security.

1–2 students per task, each working around 180 hours
2–4 months of implementation, starting from 15 February 2027
Visibility: two joint social media posts and a pitch at the final event
Costs: no project fees. Your investment is time.

For companies:

Your idea – built, not shelved

In day-to-day business, prototypes, integrations and proofs of concept rarely fail for lack of appeal – they fail for lack of time. AI tools change little about that: someone still has to build them.

Students build them with guidance from an OST expert – and along the way, you get to know future professionals and support hands-on education in Switzerland.

Submit a project idea

For open-source maintainers:

A feature from your roadmap, built your way

Is your backlog growing faster than your free time? Students take on a clearly scoped issue in your established, actively maintained project, work through pull/merge requests and are supervised by OST. A link to the issue is all you need to submit.

Submit your feature

What you get

One or two students work on your task for 2–4 months (approx. 180 hours each).
An OST advisor supervises the project.
Direct contact with motivated computer science students.
Visibility through two social media posts and a presentation at the final event.

What we need from you

A task with a clear project scope: a defined goal that can be broken down into milestones
Few dependencies, so the students can work independently
A contact person for questions, reviews and the final presentation
Willingness to contribute to two social media posts

Terms

Costs

There are no project costs for your company. Your contribution is time: supervising the idea, reviewing the students work and attending the final presentation.

Rights of use

Your company may use, copy, modify and distribute the software developed in the project, including code and documentation, without time limit. The students may also continue to use the software. If you need exclusive rights, we will agree on this in writing with you and the students before the project starts. Your existing systems, data and any code you provide remain yours, of course.

Confidentiality

The social media posts and the pitch at the final event are public. We agree with you in advance on what is shown, and confidential content stays out.

Open source projects

Student contributions are made under your project's existing licence. With common open source licences such as MIT, BSD, Apache 2.0 or GPL, this is straightforward. If your project uses a different licence or requires a Contributor License Agreement (CLA), we will clarify this with you beforehand.