Students Hack: How to teach festivalgoers that their coffee is fair trade
Student teams are currently busy developing solutions to challenges posed by companies such as Peter Larsen Kaffe and Fischer Lighting. Their solutions will be accelerated and presented to a panel of experts at Denmark’s democracy festival, Folkemødet.
Spirits were high and creativity was flowing when students, companies and organisations gathered at Industriens Hus last Friday. The afternoon marked the kick-off for groups of students from Copenhagen Business School (CBS), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and an art-driven innovation programme at ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, which has offered to create sustainable solutions for Danish businesses.
Over the spring, Danish and international student teams have worked on solving concrete challenges set by DI member companies Fischer Lighting and Peter Larsen Kaffe, among others, as part of the ambitious project Students Hack Folkemødet.
Peter Larsen Kaffe has challenged students to find ways to engage and inform coffee-drinking festivalgoers about the sustainable aspects of coffee.
“We’re present at a lot of festivals in Denmark, so it’s a really important issue for us. That’s why it’s incredible to have a bunch of smart young people working on it so intensively. We have high hopes for what they’ll come up with,” says Rebekka Lorentzen Storgaard from Peter Larsen Kaffe.
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Living lab on Bornholm
Fischer Lighting has challenged students to come up with ways to install new LED technology in existing light fixtures.
“Young people today are riding the sustainable wave. They have a good sense of what will be the business of tomorrow. We hope that students working on our challenge come up with some good solutions that can help promote our sustainable development in the long-term,” says Lars Elmvang, partner at Fischer Lighting.
The project will culminate at Denmark’s democracy festival, Folkemødet, on the island of Bornholm, which will serve as a living lab to test out the sustainable solutions. Here, students will be brought together to work on the solutions intensively, while festivalgoers will be able to follow along in the process and check out everything from prototypes to new business models to interactive artworks.
The big finale will take place at the festival on Saturday, 15 June, where students will pitch their final solutions to a panel of experts.
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FACTS
Students Hack Folkemødet
The Confederation of Danish Industry, DTU Skylab and Global Focus are behind the project “Students Hack Folkemødet”. The aim of the project is to engage groups of students from CBS, DTU and an art-driven innovation programme at ARKEN in the creation of sustainable solutions for Danish companies to help solve global challenges.
The kick-off event at Industriens Hus last Friday was the first time all parties involved in the project – companies, students and organisations – gathered to review the challenge cases and the programme for the events at Folkemødet on Bornholm in June.
Read more about Students Hack Folkemødet and check out the infographics
