FIVE INTERNATIONAL TEAMS AT THE FIRST VIRTUAL COMPETITION

The “Entrepreneurial Brains Made on Campus” (EBMC) ideas competition at the Hochschule der Medien (HdM) also had to break new ground this year. For the first time in its eleven-year history, the EBMC of the HdM and its international partners took place online. From 6 to 27 November 2020, five student teams developed ideas in the field of “Social Entrepreneurship”.

A total of 25 students from Birmingham City University (BCU), Metropolitan University Budapest (METU), Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU), WSB University Dabrowa Górnicza and HdM Stuttgart took part. The teams were drawn by lot, with one representative from each university in each team. Each team was also assigned a coach. These were lecturers and staff from the participating universities. Carina Kreidler from the Start-up Center was the team coach for the HdM, Anastasios Tapeinopoulos for the BCU, Alexander Stockinger for the JKU, Dr. Ferenc Kiss for the METU and Dr. Paweł Sobczak for the WSB.

Ideas for social, economic and political inclusion

All teams had the task of using design thinking methods to generate ideas for social initiatives that address the issue of inequality. Inequality was understood in the sense of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, especially point 10.2: “By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status” Participants received valuable input from an international panel of experts including Dr Vera Alpar (METU), Richard Leighton (BCU), Samuel Moser (Akostart Linz) and Paweł Urgacz (WSB).

Five-minute pitch videos

After these and other Zoom sessions, the students presented their ideas in five-minute pitch videos at the EBMC Demoday on 27 November. The video premiere was opened by Birgit Heilig from the Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany and by HdM Rector Prof. Dr. Alexander W. Roos. The audience and the jury got to see the full range of “social entrepreneurship”: From the integration of refugees and the upgrading of care work to perspectives for young people from socially deprived areas, objective reporting on the internet to initiatives against homophobia in sports clubs and new forms of coexistence between old people and young families.

The jury’s favourite was the “G Force”(“Grandparents Force”), which aims to bring together single senior citizens and families without grandparents. The audience vote was won by “BiSi” (“Big Sibling”), an app that offers young people advice and support in difficult life situations. In the overall evaluation, however, the teams were so close to each other that all of them will now have the opportunity to further develop their ventures in the “Academic Seed Acceerator Programme” Start-up BW ASAP.

“This was the best”

The new online format and topic were very well received by the students, as was the international collaboration despite the physical distance. Participant Kamil Pelcer from BCU says: “I’ve participated in a few entrepreneurship competitions before, but when it came to actually collaborating with other people, this was the best!”

WSB University, which participated in the EBMC for the third time in 2020, is also very impressed with the competition. On 1 December 2020, project leader Magdalena Weinle will receive the “WSB University Rector’s Award” from Rector Prof. Dr. Zdzisława Dacko-Pikiewicz on behalf of all participants.

Since 2009, a good 2,500 students have taken part in “Entrepreneurial Brains Made on Campus”. The competition was initiated and conceived by the Start-up Center of the HdM.