On March 30, the two finalists of EAE’s Student Challenge won their chance to represent the school at Babson College’s Collaborative Global Student Challenge — an annual competition that receives teams from everywhere in the world. The goal is to create a new business concept, with all its viability analyses, that will address one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Last year, 875 students from 16 different countries took part in this challenge with one goal in mind: Making the world a better place.
Today, April 20, both teams representing EAE (Inpower, from our Madrid campus, and Vassie, from our Barcelona campus) will know if they were selected to take their place in the final and get a chance to become part of the prestigious Babson Collaborative for Entrepreneurial Education, in Massachusetts, as well as a scholarship for every member of the team.
These are our teams’ propositions and feelings about the experience:
Team Vassie
The Starting Point
Project Vassie was born while having a cup of coffee. In school, they watched how almost 90% of students would use up to two disposable cups during their classes — many of which would not end up in recycling facilities. In one of their brakes, coffee in hand, they realised that this excessive use of material and the impact it has on the environment was something they had in common. It was in that moment that they realised that they had the beginning of the idea they would present for the Babson Challenge: A sustainable alternative to the use of plastic that was also comfortably portable, clean and convenient.
The Idea
The team from Barcelona Campus wants to help people reduce their CO2 footprint by making it easier for them. Their idea allows people to keep up their beverage intake without having to carry a cup around or using disposable ones. Vassie’s proposition is to set up service stations in the different points in which users can pick up and leave their cups. This new business idea includes an app, collaborating shops and free-standing pillars around the city. “Transforming our consumption habits by creating a community of agents of change and conscious consumers”.
The Experience
For the students of the Master’s in Entrepreneurship and Innovation this has been a thrilling experience. “From the beginning, we dreamt of taking part in this amazing challenge. The process has helped us put all our master’s knowledge into practice. It has also helped us establish ourselves as a multidisciplinary team, where each and every one of us has put in value in order to come up with a project that has a positive impact in our community. We hope that in the short-term we will be able to turn it into a reality so that we can help in making the city more sustainable”.
Team Inpower
The Starting Point
The Madrid Campus team was inspired by a real life story; something they’ve experienced. Lucy is a Latin American 25-year-old girl who’s related to one of the members of the team. She was born with an irreversible intellectual disability. Even when she lives a life like anyone else’s —discovering her passions, studying and graduating as an administrative assistant—, her jump to the labour market made her discover that the world wasn’t treating her the way it treated everyone else. After trying many times and having many interviews and negotiations, she got hired. However, her salary still doesn’t reflect the equality she deserves. Her story drove INPOWER to seek a change in the world: Why don’t we give motivated and capable people with disabilities the same opportunities to progress in the professional world?
The Idea
These students from themaster’s in Customer Experience and Innovation seek to connect people with disabilities who are in an active job hunt with companies through a digital platform. Through this platform, it will be possible to look for and publish job vacancies, interact with publications and chat with recruiters. Also, the INPOWER ecosystem offers educational centres that promote courses for people with disabilities.
“INPOWER is a project that seeks to reduce discrimination of people with dissabilities, to reduce the equality gap in professional environments and to give every human being equal opportunities.”
The Experience
For team INPOWER, this adventure was highly satisfactory: “This experience has been amazing; mainly because of the seriousness of the problem and because the team was so involved in coming up with feasible solutions that could be quickly implemented. We believe that reducing inequality is one of the most important UN’s SDGs that we must focus on at a social level. We think it’s a problem that everyone goes “if I don’t see it, it isn’t happening”; but no one is potentially exempt from suffering an accident and having to live with a disability for the rest of their lives.”
Good luck to both teams! Today you will know if you’ve won your place in the final and if you’re going to be a bit closer to changing the world for the better!
Article written in collaboration with:
Team Vassie: Melissa Valencia, Rodrigo de la Piedra, Luis Luna, Martha Castro, Fernando Mañá y Carlos Rubio.
Team INPOWER: Iván García, Jimena Córdova, Arianne Nieto, Cynthya Mishell Maldonado, Hildegard Melendez, Alejandra Palao.