Moving the City – 2nd Meeting UNISINOS/UAS7 in São Leopoldo, Brasil
An “International student week for entrepreneurship” took place from Nov 11th to Nov 14th in São Leopoldo (RS). Coordinated by UNISINOS, Tecnosinos and FH Münster in a unique and innovative format, “Design the Future” was set up together with students from two UAS7 universities, FH Münster and TH Köln, as well as partners from Brazil and Chile and German based companies such as SAP, Fraport and Stihl.
During the four days, the participating students were guided through the process of an innovation concept, developed by Prof. Thorsten Kliewe and Carsten Schröder, Vice President of FH Münster and Prof. Tatiana Rocha from UNISINOS. Hosted in the SAP Latin America Labs, the student teams had the optimal atmosphere for innovation and collaboration and to transform main challenges of the City of São Leopoldo, which they learned to understand with the help of the City itself, into real life scenarios.
10 different teams, three of them based in Münster, developed ideas and projects chosen among four topics such as pollution, traffic, education and renewable energies. The students worked in an atmosphere that encouraged them to think entrepreneurial and act likewise. Given two days to explore, design and present their ideas in a pitch in front of jurors, remarkable projects were carried out and the municipality of Sao Leopoldo can now take them into account for their future development.
Methods such as Design Thinking as a general approach, were used, supported by SAP coaches and adapted to fit the specific setting using canvas and mockups. The interdisciplinary, multinational teams learned entrepreneurial thinking and acting, applied their knowledge and skills for first social business ideas and learned to describe them as a conceptual sketch and could develop furthermore their social and intercultural skills.
Recap Video: Some impressions from São Leopoldo