Thanks to the great tech setup by GMV we even streamed live on YouTube so that all the parents could watch as well. That said, my dad said the stream didn’t work when he tried, so I told him it must be because of German lock down 😉
Internally, the teams used Discord to discuss with each other, the organizers and the coaches.
We kicked off the event with a brief presentation on the Sustainable Development Goals and how technology can help us move towards them, such that students could open their minds and let ideas flow. Lisa Broadwell from the Student Mobility Office presented the challenge –student mobility in times of environmental consciousness and a pandemic. How can we still give students great experiences and cultural exchange while working with those constraints?
39 participants jumped into their teams and started creating. The tool suite ranged from various online environments to drawings on good old pieces of paper that then got held up to the camera to show ideas to team mates (observed in some of the coaching calls). The coaches were ready to help out in case of questions or if a team felt stuck. By mid-afternoon, the seven teams had each put together a three-minute video clip on their project. It’s a high bar to come up with three-minute videos on ideas that had just been created and the jury was impressed by the work all teams had accomplished. We had a 1.5 hour session where groups played their video then answers tough questions by our judges.
In passionate discussion (so we hear) our jury selected a winner and two runner-ups, while the audience also chose their favorite by using a mentimeter.
We gave away 4 awards, First prize judges, people’s choice, and two judges honorable mentions. Team 12 won both first prize from the judges and people’s choice, while teams 7 and 1 got honorable mentions from the judges.
Winners of the Act! Sustainable Design Jam 2020:
First prize and people's choice
Team No 12: Grace O'Donnell, Asma Salimi Sofla, Maria Prosviryakova, Leila Bencheikh, Louis Mercier, Renyuan Huang
Honorable Mention
Team No 7: Taofik Arnouk, Antony Tansan Jeyakumar, Maheli Silva, Jonatan Andersson, Drake Axelrod
Honorable Mention
Team No 1: Veronika Vižintin, Katja Frelih, Lina Boman, Agnieszka Dudek, Chaneli Silva, Herman Jansson
The organizers conclude:
Overall, we are super happy with the high engagement of the students teams and that we also had participants from ten universities from our partner network across Europe.
Organizers:
- Francisco Gomes
- Birgit Penzenstadler
- Lisa Broadwell
- Hannah Maltkvist
- Jennifer Horkoff
Coaches:
Catrin Lammgård, Marta Gonzalez-Aregall, Khan Mohammad Habibullah, Afonso Fontes, Linda Erlenhov
Judges:
Lisa Broadwell is an International Relations Officer from the University of Gothenburg's International Centre.
Håkan Burden is a senior researcher at RISE and an assistant professor at Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg. He is dedicated to supporting a transition of our society towards sustainability in all areas.
Camilla Pettersson is an Innovation Officer at the University of Gothenburg's Research and Innovation Office. Her focus is on supporting research and development, research communication, innovation and utilisation of research and knowledge assets from the university.
Dimitris Platis is an experienced software engineer working at Zenseact. Dimitris is what he calls a software maker who enjoys “hacking things together” to create useful software technology.
Written by: Birgit Penzenstadler, assisted by Jennifer Horkoff and Francisco Gomes
