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Staff Exchange Experience at UPC: Teaching IoT and Virtualisation in MERIT

As part of the MERIT staff exchange, three representatives from Riga Technical University visited the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – BarcelonaTech (UPC) in Manresa, UPC Manresa – EPSEM: Dean Agris Nikitenko, Larisa Survilo, and Karlis Berkolds.

The team brought expertise in IoT systems, virtualisation, data analytics, and educational infrastructure development, sharing insights from RTU’s “living lab” which is a campus-wide sensor network used for research and teaching.

During a two-academic-hour session, the RTU team delivered a guest lecture titled “Shared IoT Infrastructure”, introducing UPC master’s students to:

• The MERIT project and its goal of bridging the digital skills gap in AI, IoT, and cybersecurity.
• Real-world IoT infrastructure design challenges, including hardware diversity, scalability, cybersecurity, and data integration.
• RTU’s sensor-based Living Lab that includes more than 850 Aranet IoT devices used for real-time data collection, analytics exercises, and digital twin scenarios.
• Demonstrations of Aranet Cloud, virtual desktops, and practical workflows used by RTU students to work with data and build predictive models.
• Examples of hands-on assignments such as malfunction detection, classroom occupancy analysis, forecasting room temperature, and deploying containerised models.

The session also included a short introduction to the virtual desktop environment used at RTU, built on Omnissa Horizon, showing how students access software tools and Jupyter Lab remotely for data processing and IoT-related tasks

The exchange highlighted several important insights for both institutions. It demonstrated that shared infrastructures significantly accelerate learning, as students benefit from working with real IoT systems and large-scale data environments, even when accessed remotely. 

Moreover, the experience reinforced how cross-institution collaboration enriches curricula: by sharing best practices across MERIT partners, universities can better align their programmes and strengthen the integration of IoT, AI, and cybersecurity into master’s studies.