Global Challenge Lab Hackathon

How can we create a better society of tomorrow? One that is more sustainable, equal, and just? And how can students develop the skills to take part in this important transition, and take action to make it a reality? At the Global Challenge Lab (GCL), students from around the world form cross-institutional and interdisciplinary teams - consisting of three to six people - to work on projects related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this program, Imperial College Enterprise Lab, Tsinghua University's x-lab and Technical University of Munich are working with global university partners to bring together hundreds of students and alumni to grow their international network, gain new skills, and create new ideas that help achieve the UN SDG defined by the United Nations. At the end of the program, the best teams will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas live to a panel of judges and potentially win a share of a total of £10K in prize fund. The task is to come up with a technology-driven product or service solution that contributes to advance one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals as defined by the United Nations.

Knowledge Objectives After the course, students will be able to - Understand selected major technological and societal development and how those may be shaped positively through entrepreneurial effort - Identify human-centric problems and ways to assess their importance and urgency - Describe ways in which to identify and develop potential solution that have the potential to address societal problems in a way that can be different from existing solutions. - Understand how potential solutions may be applied to societal problems in innovative and original ways to achieve fit - Collect data and feedback and draw inferences to evaluate or improve their solutions or identify different opportunities - Explain and present their idea of how to apply their solution to which problem - Identify some of the key skills required to implement a specific idea, and whether it is currently present in a team they are asked to assess (including their own team) Skills Objectives - Improve cross-cultural communication and collaboration skills - Sharpen presentation and pitching skills - Build up critical thinking and interpretation skills - Learn how to evaluate different strategic options - Learn about current technologies in the broader area of sustainable development - Learn about strategic tools, options, and approaches that may work even under high uncertainty - Assess and resolve entrepreneurial managerial challenges Learning Objectives At the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate understanding, critical assessment, and application of the following: - The factors that contribute to achieving the UN SDGs from a global perspective - The impact and importance of entrepreneurship in achieving the UN SDGs - Approaches by which aspiring entrepreneurs may navigate the entrepreneurial journey

At the end of the two weeks of the program, students will submit a three-minute pitch video, accompanied by a 150 word summary, describing the problem they have identified and the solution they suggest to address it in the form of an entrepreneurial venture. They will be evaluated based on - the quality of the problem they have identified (e.g., is it real, important, urgent, and human- centered? Can the students present data to support their claims?) - the value and fit of their solution (e.g., does it solve the problem? Does it do so in a way that is positively different [better, cheaper, more sustainable, …] than existing solutions? Can students show implementability and market demand?) - the level of innovation (e.g., evidence of creativity and/or novelty in the idea, business model, implementation strategy, or technologies employed) - impact (e.g., does the idea address the relevant SDGs? Do potential rewards justify expected costs?) - team (e.g., does the team understand its abilities and skills? Do they see who and/or what else may be needed to make their idea a reality?) The evaluation will be conducted by expert judges who support the GCL program. As these judges tend to evaluate the team rather than the individual, team members wishing for an individualized grade need to contact TUM staff before the end of the event and document which efforts were conducted by which group member (ideally confirmed by the other group members). The expert evaluation will be translated into a simple pass/fail grade. If necessary, a specific grade might also be inquired for.

No prequisites, but some general knowlege about entrepreneurship is recommended.

The GCL is an online format. Over the course of the two weeks, students will be exposed to a series of talks, workshops, and events, provided by a diverse set of experts and collaborators. Although attendance is not compulsory, we strongly encourage live participation to ensure the best possible learning experience. The content of these sessions will include for example: - Information on the GCL challenge, process, and expectations - The SDGs and the role of entrepreneurship in this context, including specific challenges and opportunities, and related political, societal, economic, and technological developments - The entrepreneurial process, with a specific focus on human-centered problems and processes - Collaborating in cross-cultural teams On top of that, student teams will have the opportunity to participate in mentoring sessions. All sessions will be held via the Zoom platform. The links to the Zoom session will be distributed to all registered course participants. All participants are required to set up their Zoom account so that it eventually displays their Zoom name as [Team name]_[Fullname], for example TheEnts_JaneDoe. Many content sessions will be offered twice to allow for participants from various time zone to join a live session. In addition, all sessions will be recorded and made available over the course of the program. The majority of the work will consist of students shaping their own idea outside of the dedicate sessions by the GCL. Accordingly, students are expected to draw on their prior knowledge, the expert inputs they receive, and the teambuilding sessions in which they participate to facilitate an exploration, during which guidance by experienced mentors will be provided. Eventually, students will refine their idea into a pitch document that could form the nucleus of an entrepreneurial idea they could go on to realize after the GCL.