The Bremen-Cardiff Initiative on Sustainability & Entrepreneurship, part of the Bremen-Cardiff Alliance, entered its fourth round this year. Students of various fields ranging from mathematics, computer science, and geosciences, to communication and business from the University of Bremen and Cardiff University took up the challenge and worked on business ideas in the field of sustainability. The students worked in interdisciplinary and international teams over three online days and five days on site.
Mandy Boehnke, Vice President for International Affairs, Academic Qualification, and Diversity, refers to the long-standing partnership between Cardiff University and the University of Bremen: “Partnership and collaboration – that's what this workshop is also about. The participating students breathe life into the cooperation. Over the next two weeks, they will get to know the respective universities, explore new topics, develop tangible ideas, and hopefully spend an exciting time together."
After three days online, the five teams met in person for the first time and were supported in the further development of their ideas with everything from marketing and branding to presentation tips. But the interactive part was not neglected either, with Lego exercises as a team-building measure and a guided tour of the city. A three-member jury of start-up and sustainability experts chose the SPARC team as having the idea with the most potential. The idea was to use an app to transparently display the energy consumption of residential buildings and motivate people to save energy with challenges and small tidbits of knowledge.
For communication and culture student Laurent Biel, diversity was the highlight of the week: “On the one hand, you were able to work on projects, further your education, but also discover the city.” Environmental physics student Clever Ogbonna underlines the importance of the topic of sustainability for all degree programs and the interdisciplinary nature of the groups: “I can really recommend this great program to everyone!”
The initiative is planned, organized, and facilitated by colleagues from the Global Opportunities and Entrepreneurship Team at Cardiff University and BRIDGE/ UniTransfer and the International Office at the University of Bremen.
