The Finals +++ The Finals +++ The Finals

Finally the time had come: 

The Finals of the Global Entrepreneurship Summer School took place yesterday!

Our 35 outstanding participants and the whole GESS Team were waiting for it for a long time. The teams worked very hard during the last 8 days, went through ups and downs and never gave up. They created amazing innovations, presented great pitches and showed their potential to the jury and the public.
  

The 35 GESS Participants 2014

Jens Bosse Parra, moderator of the event and dressed in traditional Bavarian 'Lederhosen' welcomed around 200 guests in the Falk F. Strascheg Hörsaal at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich.
The official opening was made by Klaus Sailer the host of the evening. The other members of the board 4entrepreneurship Helmut Schönenberger, Bernhard Katzy and Andy Goldstein spoke to the audience as well. They praised the teams for their intensive work and discipline during the week and emphasized that the commitment does not end with the finals but lasts beyond. 

Afterwards Dr. Bruno Gross, Managing Director of the Goethe-Institut gave impulses on best practice examples they are supporting all around the world. He pronounced as well the prize for the winning team: An invitation to the Social-Culture Entrepreneurship Startup Weekend in Thessaloniki in January.

Kevin and Kelvin pitching for Team 'Wastestage'

And then it was time for the pitches. 
Team 'Waststage' was first. They understand themselves as a world wide network of entrepreneurs aiming to scale up transformative ideas to solve the global societal problem of waste. 
The second team was 'SmartLink'. They invented a SMS system that improves the efficient allocation of food remains in India so that food waste is reduced.
Third was 'Journeybox'. This team developed a shoe box that can be folded together and resend via a deposit system.

After a short break we heard four more presentations:

The first team after the break was 'Binee'. They created a sexy waste separation system with gratifications. 
Next was 'SocialFuel'. This team concentrated on turning plastic into fuel.
The second last team 'Wasteout' developed a business model on the recycling of human waste. 
Last but not least 'Freshr' presented an integrated food management system.

The jury 2014 was build up by the mentioned Klaus Sailer, Helmut Schönenberger, Bernhard Katzy and Andy Golstein as well as Krisztina Tora from UnLtd London, Dorothee Vogt from Bonventure and Dr. Brendan Galbraith from the University of Ulster. While the jury discussed about the winner of this year's Global Entrepreneurship Summer School, David Baumgartner, founder and CEO of dean&david gave a motiving speech on his successfull business story.

Then the jury came back, gave feedback to all the project teams and finally announced:

Winner Team of 2014: SmartLink

And the winner is ... 'SmartLink'! Congratulations to Neha, Oreoluwa, Luka, Marvin and Jonas!

After the finals the Social Entrepreneurship Akademie and the entrepreneurship centers invited all guests to a Get-together with a great buffet, drinks and the opportunity to talk to the teams. 

The GESS Team and the participants are happy now that the work is done but also sad because most of the participants are going back to home countries today. To celebrate the successful end of the summer school we met up one last time for dancing and partying before the Global Entrepreneurship Summer School participants will be splitted up again over the globe.

Thanks to everyone who followed our blog and supported the GESS! It was a great time and we are looking forward to next year. The topic of 2015 will be 'Youth Unemployment'. 

See you again next year!

                                                              And the winner is....

Day 8 - Last Day before the Finals!

GESS Team 2014

Today it's the last day before the finals! It's 9.30 pm and the teams are still working on their products and pitches in the Creative Hall. 
As the countdown continues: tension is mounting. Only a few more hours until the finals of GESS 2014 begin!

The whole day our students worked a lot to prepare for the finals tomorrow. A few teams decided to rethink their business models and start over. They are working together with their virtual participants and experts from the entrepreneurship centers to further enhance the ideas and presentations. Be surprised about the improvement and changes they made and find out about their ideas on the event tomorrow.

It is going to be an amazing evening with impressive presentations, interesting innovations and input by successful entrepreneurs like David Baumgartner (dean&david).
Furthermore, Dr. Bruno Gross, Managing Director of the Goethe-Institut, is going to give impulses on best practice examples worldwide that are supported by the Goethe-Institut.

The last days we presented to you the project teams. But there is one team left: The GESS organisation team! Kristina, Oliver, Stani, Christina, Kevin, Florian, Uli, Alissa, Maximiliane and Nikolaus are really looking forward to an exciting day tomorrow and are happy to welcome you all at the Hochschule München!

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Finals of the Global Entrepreneurship Summer School 2014 - September 25, 5pm - Hochschule München, Falk F. Strascheg Hörsaal, Lothstr. 64, 80335 München - Entrance free!
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Day 7 - Mid Term Pitches

The jury members giving suggestions for improvement

Yesterday our teams worked very hard until late at night because of the mid term pitches today. Each team has to present their ideas in front of our board members Klaus Sailer, Andy Goldstein, Bernhard Katzy and Helmut Schönenberger. 

Everybody is looking forward to it but of course all of them are also nervous: Is our product innovative enough? What does the board think about our work? Do we have a good pitch? The time is short and our participants are putting lots of effort into their projects. 

Neha from India presenting the business model

After little sleep last night they are working since the early morning on improving their presentation and products. Everybody wants to convince the board members of their innovations. There are only 2 days left until the finals.

Our team of the day is 'Californication'. Simon and Deborah from Germany, Adel from the Dominican Republic, Arthur from Latvia and Mariem from Tunisia are working on reducing food waste. They found out that 65% of the food waste is produced by the households.

The team invented the so called 'freshr'. This is a smart food box for the fridge. It realizes what is inside and sends information to an app or a stylish WIFI box next to the fridge. It makes the organization of food buying easier and tells the consumer exactly on which level of the fridge to put the fruit box, the meat box and the veggie box so that they have an extended shelf-life.

Team 'Californication'

Day 5 & 6 - Startups Inspire Our Students, Oktoberfest and Getting Back to Work

Carolin Fiechter from 'Leaf Republic'

Day 4 Part II: Startups Inspire Our Students

As promised today's blog will start with an update on Saturday's startup guests:

Leaf Republic produces environmental friendly food packaging and disposable plates and cutlery. PhyscoFilter cleans wastewater from clinics which is polluted by hormones and antibiotics.

The teams were impressed by the motivation and hard work those two companies had put in their businesses: It is important to face the challenges and never give up in order to survive. Of course you have to adapt your business model and always keep in mind: Create value for the customer.

David Wehner from 'PhyscoFilter'

After receiving lots of input from Leaf Republic and PhsycoFilter the project groups were asked to continue working on their ideas. The two startups coached our teams individually and helped them develop their ideas further.

At this point we would like to introduce two more of our teams: 

Kevin from Italy, Saskia from Sweden, Kelvin from the Phillippines, Mxo from South Africa and Bernardo from Brazil (Team 'House of Cards') are developing moldable and reusable packaging for the parcel sending industry. They want to make the sending of non-food items such as laptops or fragile items easier and eco-friendly.   

'Game of Thrones' (Marvin from Germany, Jonas from Switzerland, Luka from Serbia, Oreoluwa from Nigeria and Neha from India) are working on an approach to make food last longer in third world countries. They want to provide storage kits e.g. in order to cool or dry food so that it can be sold for a longer period of time and doesn't turn bad as fast as it does at the moment.

        

Team 'House of Cards'

Team 'Game of Thrones'

Day 5: Group Work and a Munich Experience

After half a day of working hard during group work our students were finally able to experience Munich at the Oktoberfest. The Entrepreneurship Centers invited the participants to socialise, get to know german tradition through German music, traditional Bavarian food and drinks. 

Having fun at the Oktoberfest

Day 6: Getting Back to Work

Today our participants got back to work and were asked to further develop their ideas and improve their business models. 'Linguedo' co-founder Matthias Gilch visited us today and coached the teams.

Now the project groups are presenting their business models to the team and the other groups. 
Based on their performances, GESS team member Florian Porsch from UnternehmerTUM is going to train the teams later today to improve their presentation skills in order to be successful at the upcoming finals on Thursday.

Day 4 - Do Costumer Development and Stop Wasting Your Time!

Julia Klinger (LMU Entrepreneurship Center)

On the fourth day of our Global Entrepreneurship Summer School Jens Bosse Parra and Julia Klinger from the LMU Entrepreneurship Center prepared the students to target the real customers and the right ones. Using social media campaigns such as facebook marketing was one of the main topics they covered. They also introduced Google Analytics which the students can use in future projects to evaluate customer feedback. With those two tools our participants are now able to test their products on the market. 

Jens Bosse Parra (LMU Entrepreneurship Center)

The teams are currently working on substantiating their problem statements, brainstorming on possible solutions and interviewing friends and colleagues to get more data on the waste problems and their causes.

Since we started introducing our project groups we are now continuing to present two more teams:
 

Team 'The Sopranos'

'The Sopranos' (Joshua from the United States, Kathryn from Uganda, Silver from Vietnam, Fabian from Germany and Petr from the Czech Republic) are concentrating on reducing electronic scrap and intensifying recycling. Their first idea is to build warehouses where electronic devices are fixed and resold. Furthermore, they are thinking about creating an exchange market for these products while using a 'costumer to costumer exchange' or  a 'business to business exchange' platform.

Team 'Two and a half men'

Our second team of the day is 'Two and a half men'. Martha from the Netherlands, Ilya from Canada, Iris from China, André from Germany and Cris from Mexico want to reduce waste on beaches and shores. Their goal of today was to organise their research on the causes of waste issues and then to decide on the specific causes they want to address in their project work and business model creation.

This afternoon we will have input from two local startups. Leaf Republic and PhyscoFilter are going to visit us at the Creative Hall to talk about their experiences as entrepreneurs. The participants will have time to ask questions about how to launch a business and lead it to success.

Stay tuned to find out what the participants learned from our guests!  

Last but not least, here's a video our participant Saskia from Sweden showed us today. Check it out, it's amazing: 

Day 3 - The Project Teams Are Working Hard

'Good Morning Warm and Wake Up'

Only energized participants are able to design "1 Billion Dollar projects to foster societal change". So every day starts with a cosy warm-up.
So did day three. 

The daily lecture was given by Prof. David Romero (Tecnológico de Monterrey University in Mexico) who presented different business modeling tools including the 'Business Model Canvas'. This lecture provided our students the tools they need to continue working on their projects.

David Romero from Mexico

In the next days we would like to present the teams: 

The first team to be introduced is team 'Breaking Bad' or 'Bakeing Bread' how they like to call themselves. Szilvia from Hungary, Willian from Brazil, Martin from Germany, Esteban from Guatemala and Charu from the United States are the members of this project group.

Team 'Breaking Bad'

They are working on the problem that waste disposal is not efficient. Using a 'smart bin sensor' they would like to improve waste separation. The team developed first ideas on how to realize it:  A machine that separates waste with high pressure, an app that offers an incentive system to the consumers who can earn credits when seperating waste correctly. Tomorrow they want to to develop a first draft of a business plan. 

Team 'How I met your mother'

Our second team of the day is team 'How I met your mother': Isabella and Patrick from Germany, Jafrul from Bangladesh, Peter from Ghana and Carmine from Italy are focusing on 'Packaging' since non-recyclable packages cause a lot of waste problems. First innovative ideas are already made. They are thinking about three different solutions: A machine that puts all the stuff together that people are buying in the supermarkets, a system how to use the materials as house isolation or an 'Upcycling App'. We are looking forward to seeing their work development.

Stay tuned and see what will happen tomorrow!

Day 2 of GESS 2014 - Getting Started with the Group Work

Klaus Sailer expressing his message graphically

The sun was shining above Munich when our participants got back to the Strascheg Center this morning.

 
The second day of the Global Entrepreneurship Summer School began with an interesting lecture given by Prof. Dr. Klaus Sailer, Executive Director of the Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship, talking about 'Innovation and Social Impact'.

Bernhard Katzy giving his lecture

Afterwards Prof. Dr. Bernhard Katzy, founder and CEO of the Center for Technology & Innovation Management gave an interactive lecture on 'Global Trends in Entrepreneurship'. He told the participants a guiding theme for the week: Think big!


The third lecture of the day was given by Markus Heinsdorff, founder of the Social Business 'Mobile Hydro'. He spoke about 'Waste and Urban Development'.
 

After having lunch in the sun the participants started working on their task for today: While remembering Bernhard Katzy's words "Think big", define the waste problem you're interested in the most and want to solve! 



The teams are working, discussing and brainstorming now. We are looking forward to their daily pitches and their ideas on this task.

Brainstorming on a big wall of post-its