COLLABORATING TO SOLVE REAL BUSINESS CHALLENGES – WSA YOUTH FOR INNOVATION.
For six weeks, 44 students from 8 participating Universities have addressed 7 entrepreneurial business challenges, hosted by former WSA Winners. The real-life challenges of the purpose-driven tech ventures ranged from business development to marketing strategies, with the goal for the students to engage in collaboration to find the best solutions.
The WSA Youth for Innovation program enabled the students to apply their skills and knowledges on real ventures, collaborate internationally and interdisciplinary to gain intercultural competences and provided a series of webinars, held by international business experts, ranging from of business development topics such as community building, UN SDGs, innovation to pitching.
Grouped on their expertise and where they felt they could best contribute towards a specific challenge, the student teams worked together with the WSA entrepreneurs, and were guided by experienced academia student team leads, supporting and mentoring them in their solution development.
In the final phase, the student teams presented their solution to a jury, gaining hands-on experience on pitching a business solution to international experts.
After an interesting pitching session, the jury selected the best student teams as winners, based on a selection of criteria including the presentation of the pitch and the quality of the solution.
All teams presented great work, but in the end the following 3 teams stood out and were selected by the jury as this year´s WSA Youth for Innovation winners:
Students working on the challenge of Baahdy & Birdy:
Dushko Petrovski - University of Skopje, North Macedonia
Melisa Muhovic - University of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Gitta Nyolczas - Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Hungary
Dorottya Márkus - Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Hungary
Ovini Hewage - World University Friends, Sri Lanka
Aleksandar Jovanovski - University of Skopje, North Macedonia
Challenge Host: Linda Skipnes Strand - Baahdy & Birdy, Norway
Student Team Lead: Attila Horányi - Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Hungary
Students working on the challenge of ClickMedix:
Manjith Kumar Reddy Sirigireddy - Politecnico Di Milano, Italy
Alexander Liu - Fachhochschule Kiel, Germany
Nadun Pabasara - Saegis Campus, Sri Lanka
Heshan Malinda - Saegis Campus, Sri Lanka
Student Team Lead: Franziska Uhing - Fachhochschule Kiel, Germany
Students working on the challenge of Leaf Global Fintech:
Dante Nicklin - Salzburg College, Austria
Himesha Kavinda - Saegis Campus, Sri Lanka
Maximilian Pentzlin - Fachhochschule Kiel, Germany
Pasasna Amarasinghe - World University Friends, Sri Lanka
Dorottya Novák - Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Hungary
All winners will receive a digital participation certificate, promotion through the WSA communication channels and their CV’s to be sent to the WSA network along with a recommendation letter from WSA.