KaosPilot

1. Application process
Formal criteria: To even be considered as a potential student at the KaosPilots applicants have to:

• Be at least 21
  
• Have experience of working in project culture
  
• Be able to formulate themselves verbally and in writing in English
  

2. Questionnaire
Meeting these criteria the admissions process has two phases:

• The applicant completes a questionnaire with around 50 questions givning them the opportunity to give a detailed picture of themselves in terms of both professional and personal qualifications and skills. They get to tell us about their educational background, language and IT skills, work experience and positions of responsibility and trust. They also have the chance to tell us about their hobbies, beliefs, life philosophy and values, and are also asked to complete a creative assignment set by the school.
  
  
• On the basis of this written application (the questionnaire and written assignment) a group of 50-80 potential KaosPilots are selected for the admissions workshop.
  

3. Admissions workshop
The admissions workshop lasts two days. Here the applicant enters a group of 8-10 applicants divided according to nationality. During the workshop applicants from non-Scandinavian countries work in English. In each group the applicants - either as a group or individually - complete a long series of creative and professional assignments set by the school in collaboration with the KaosPilots external partners.

Evaluation and selection
The results of the applicant's work at the workshop, supplemented by information from the questionnaire and an evaluation of the written concept assignment form the material the school uses to test the individual applicant's professional and personal level of maturity items of joining the KaosPilots. The final decision is based on an overall evaluation and assessment of the extent to which the applicant actively used him/herself during the admissions process. Especially during the three days of the admissions workshop.

KaosPilots in work

Despite the diversity of job profiles there is a common thread running through the careers of most KaosPilot graduates. When they leave the school most students go on to work with development, leadership and organisational projects at middle and top level. Working for the state, working for private companies and working for the institutions in between. Unless, that is, they decide to start their own company. Which is what the largest single group of KaosPilot graduates choose to do.

If you were to make a job hit-list of qualified KaosPilos the simplified version would look like this:

1. The largest group of qualified KaosPilots you'll find realizing their own business ideas (business like Yala Yala, KaosManagement and Lust)

2. The second largest group of qualified KaosPilots work in the private sector for companies like Frog Design, Kairos Future, Carl Bro, Bonnier, Telenor).

3. The third largest group of qualified KaosPilots work for non-profit organisations like the AIDS Foundation, Danish Red Cross, the Confederation of Danish Broadcasting Corporation, local authorities, the Children's University and The Danish Film Institute.

KaosPilot School in Århus

You don’t have to spend much time at the KaosPilot school in Århus to realize that the school is more than just a three-year Bachelor education in creative business design and social innovation. It is also an education with a clearly defined set of values that runs all through the education.

At a major seminar for the students, colleagues, board of directors and external partners in 2001 – the so-called POP-seminar held every 2 or 3 years – it was decided that the school’s most important values be identified. Six basic values and attitudes were outlined as indispensable to the educational program. They are:

1. Playful - It has to be motivational, creative and constructive to be at the KaosPilots.

2. Real world - the students and staff have to work with real problems, real people and real conflicts.

3. Streetwise - the school must never be out of touch with what is happening at street level in our society.

4. Risk-taking - the program and the staff must possess the will to be brave and take risks.

5. Balanced - the school must strive for the right dynamic and balance between bodyand soul, between form and content and, not least, between human, timeand economic resources.

6. Compassionate - human compassion and social responsibility must be the hallmarks of the school.

The formulation of these values proved to be an identity breakthrough for The KaosPilots and serves today as a quality filter for all decisions, projects, employment, arrangements, etc. The six values have proven to be resistant to the discussions arising now and then about supplementing or replacing them. So far, the students and staff have held on to these values as the school’s entirely unique and indispensable core values.