Story

The story of AlbaSim starts in 2006 with a concrete demand of new concepts of project managment education at the School of Business and Engineering Vaud (HEIG-VD). In order to complement his lectures with elements of action learning, Dominique Jaccard was looking for a project management simulation covering the whole project life cycle, from initiation to the close-out, combining software activities with role plays and teamwork. As there was no such a product in the market, Dominique Jaccard suggested Eric Inderbitzin to focus his bachelor thesis on the development of such a project management simulation. Supervised by Dominique Jaccard and supported by TECFA (the educational technology research unit at University of Geneva), Eric Inderbitzin presented a solution based on a general script editor allowing for easy creation of different project management scenarios.
 

2007. First usable prototype was developed by Eric Inderbitzin and Dominique Jaccard and was used for BA lectures at School of Business and Engineering Vaud (HEIG-VD).
 

2008. The prototype was significantly improved and then tested by faculty members at HEIG-VD and at University of Ottawa. Feedback from both professors and students were more than promising and the project hence pursued. 
 

2009. Maxence Laurent join the team and contributed to the development of the first public version of the Project Management Simulation. Faculty members from University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland (MBA program) and University of Geneva (MBA program) as well as the State of Fribourg started to use the Project Management Simulation.
 

2010. The scenario editor allowing for the creation of customized scenarios, is used to design a logistic project management scenario for the Swiss Federal Institue of Technology (EPFL Lausanne - MA program in logistics management). University of Lausanne used the software for its MA program in Health Economics and Management. 
 

2011. Eric Inderbitzin leave the team in order to make his old dream come true and become a Swiss Airline pilot. François-Xavier Aeberhard and Steffen Roth joined the team, which also took up work on a new project: a Web Game Authoring System (WEGAS) that allows for the design of all types of educational simulation games. WEGAS will enable trainers to create their own specific simulations, without the need of any programming skills.

New users includes University of Lausanne (BA program), Haute Ecole Valaisanne (HEV, Sion) and Haute Ecole Arc (HE-ARC, Neuchâtel). Companies and institutions like MerkSerono, CEP or CHUV also started to use customized project management scenarios for their internal training programs.