Moving the Cities 2022: Students develop solutions tackling SDG 11
This year, the hybrid event took place from October 17 to 28th, gathering more than 140 students from 12 universities from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Germany, USA & UK. The project featured new challenges and opportunities for students to enhance their entrepreneurial and interdisciplinary skills, explore the multicultural experience, while developing innovative ideas.
Moving the Cities has been a great success since 2018!
The project is an initiative conceived by Unisinos in partnership with UAS7 and FH-Münster to promote the development of solutions to current challenges through international and intercultural cooperation between science, entrepreneurship, innovation, technology and society.
This year, there were 24 international groups participating – 10 of them meeting in person in São Leopoldo, Brazil, and 14 meeting online. The multicultural teams worked hard to develop solutions tackling the Sustainable Development Goal 11: make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
The online teams focused on Sustainable Transportation, aiming to provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all.
The in-person teams worked on Sustainable Human Settlements and Sustainable Cities, proposing ideas to enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and to ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums.
The first-place winner from online was WheelSchool, a school-based program that assists elementary students with the safe use of bikes as their primary means of transportation and focus on utilizing existing resources.
The participants counted with the experience of more than 30 coaches and 3 international mentors who are leading experts on the specific topic of SDG11, providing firsthand insights into the challenges and development of the projects.
The Grand Finale was carried out at SAP Labs Latin America. The students had 3 minutes to pitch their concepts to a jury, presenting inspiring and innovative ideas.
The in-person winning group was VerdeNovo, providing compostable recycling bags linked to an award system after consumers return their recycling trash.
The winners were awarded with the SAP certification award, design thinking coaching sessions, and SAP career talks and all participants received the SAP Engagement Award. Above all, this experience enabled important takeaways:
It taught me that this is our planet and if we want to conserve it for future generations, we must come together as one to find solutions.
Efrain J. Gerena-Rodriguez, UMN
I learned a lot: how to negotiate in the multicultural team, how to accept your teammates differences, how to pitch your idea in only 3 min.
Sofia Kuchumova, FH Münster
The ideas we debated and all of the smart minds reunited showed that MtC was all about seeing that we all live in the same world and as humans have more similarities than differences.
Lenon Cisco, Unisinos
We thank the students, professors, coaches, mentors and all the staff that made this event possible. A big thank you to Unisinos, FH Münster, SAP and Tecnosinos and all our partners.
