Think circular together with Swarovski

Innovate2030 is a pan-European innovation project in cooperation with Peter Altmaier (CDU), German lawyer and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy and Dirk Messner, President of the Federal Environment Agency and numerous representatives from business, politics and science.

The project calls on students, researchers, young professionals and startups to develop new ideas and solutions for the digital and sustainable future of Europe. Using real-world challenges from established organizations, the goal is to solve real problems and challenges from a wide range of areas and to develop innovations for added value in society.

The participants receive support from experienced IT coaches from Bechtle, the largest IT system house in Germany and Impact Week, a non-profit program that fosters innovation, entrepreneurship, and intercultural exchange through Design Thinking.

The goal of the project is to create an exchange between the digital generation, science, business and politics that will enable participants to help shape Europe's path to a sustainable future. The aim is to develop new solutions and innovations that add value to sustainability and digitization in society.

Register

In order to participate in Innovate2030, you first have to register on our platform app.ekipa.de in a few steps.

Participate

#1 In the first step you choose a suitable use case for you. For a first orientation, you can use the respective hashtags under the use cases to identify the appropriate topic for you. You can find all use cases here

#2 Once you have found the use case that interests you, you now have the opportunity to create a new team in this use case, join existing teams or participate alone.

#3 Now develop new ideas and approaches to your chosen use case, alone or with your team. You have until July 5th, 2021 to submit your ideas and solutions via your team-internal workspace on the platform. Please note the criteria of your use case. In any case, the submission of the submission template is mandatory. Make sure that you upload your submission on the page of the respective use case.

Note: Do you have problems with the development of your first ideas and approaches?
For this purpose, we organize digital Design Thinking Workshops during the qualification phase! You can register for one of these workshops here or find more information here.

Participation Criteria

There are no age or degree requirements. This challenge is open to all ambitious innovators who are determined to meet our current social challenges and actively shape the digital future. Furthermore, you can also participate as a startup with your solution.

For successful participation, you must submit your ideas and approaches via our submission template on our platform by July 5th, 2021 11:59 pm CET. Submissions should be made in English. You must submit the use case-specific submission templates on the respective subpage.

Participation in the challenge is only binding once you have submitted the submission template and the submission phase is over. Until then you can withdraw your submission at any time. Once the deadline is over and you submitted your solution before, your submission counts. If you can't/do not want to participate, just contact us and we will find a way together.

Participation options

Participate alone

You can participate alone in one of the use cases by clicking on the 'Join Now' button in your chosen use case page and then click on the 'Join Alone' option. If you change your mind during the challenge and decide to work together, it's not a problem. You can simply delete your participation and choose another option.

Participate as a team

You are already friends, fellow students or colleagues and want to participate together? That is great! One person from your team needs to click on the 'Join Now' button and select 'Start Your Own Team'. If you already have all the members you need, ignore the last question 'What does your team need?' in the pop-up. When you are ready to add new members, fill it out so your team is open to requests. Now all remaining team members can request to join the team you have created in the tab "Teams". Remember that you all must be registered to join. Also, every team member has equal rights, there is no admin position.

Important: If you want to participate as a team, each team member who wants to be a participant must register on the platform and join your digital team.

Join an existing team

You know that you want to participate in a team, but you do not have anyone in mind to join? That is not a problem! Under the tab "Teams" you will find an overview of all teams looking for members. Apply for participation if your skills match what the team is looking for - good luck! You can apply for more than one team until you find the right one.

Not sure yet? Team Matching!

You are not sure if you want to participate and want to see what's out there first? No problem! We have provided you with a team-matching channel on LinkedIn! After the matching, you register quickly and follow the instructions in the option “participate as a team”.

For the submission, it is sufficient to enter your idea or solution approach in the guiding questions of our submission template and upload it on our platform. It doesn't have to be a fully developed concept with concrete implementation, a visualization of your idea (maybe even sketch-based) is sufficient – it should as well developed as possible but appropriate to the time you have.

Every participant will always be able to use his or her own submissions to the full extent. Concerning the planned joint publication of all solutions, the final teams will only grant us the necessary rights so that we can publish the solution under a Creative Common License (non-commercial). In addition, all final teams agree to enter into discussions with the respective use case submitter within three months of the project's completion regarding possible further collaboration or further use of the submissions. During this period, the final teams also agree not to enter into discussions with third parties regarding further use of the solutions. All details can be found in the conditions of participation.

After the end of the deadline, the submissions of the various use cases will be reviewed by the organizers and the respective use case sponsors. The two best teams per use case will be selected and invited to participate in the Bootcamp. All participants will be informed about their participation until July 13th, 2021 11:59 pm CET. After completion of the project, the concepts will be published in a joint publication, the teams will receive individual support and cooperation with the use case providers will be defined.

By participating in this project, you will have the opportunity to get in touch with experts from business and science and participate in exclusive events with personal mentoring. In every phase of the challenge, you will be supported by experienced business and IT coaches from ekipa and Bechtle, the largest IT system house in Germany and innovation coaches from Impact Week, a non-profit program that fosters innovation, entrepreneurship, and intercultural exchange through Design Thinking.
In addition to the publication of your solution approach, the winners will also receive a prize pool of 20.000 EUR in total. Besides, there are also long-term collaboration possibilities with the organization of the use case with the prospect of implementing the solution.

The Bootcamp will be completely handled by digital tools, we will connect you with experts from business and science and the company representatives of your use cases to give you new input for a further elaboration of your approaches. You will discuss your approaches in networking sessions, various workshops on specific topics and e.g. coaching sessions with IT coaches of Bechtle and innovation coaches from Impact Week.

The final event will be completely digital and will offer you a stage to pitch your idea in front of a jury headed by Dirk Messner, President of the Federal Environment Agency. Various stages are available for this purpose, on which the final teams compete against each other in front of selected jurors. In addition to the pitches, there will be keynote speeches by innovation experts and a panel discussion and also a joint "Get Together". At the end of the event, the winners of the challenge will be selected and honored.

You only need a laptop or computer with a stable internet connection. We will give you access to all relevant digital tools.

Just register on our platform, we have set up a newsletter to inform you about the latest news of the challenge. You can also follow us on the common Social Media platforms, we will document our projects daily.

We have set up a Social Media Kit where we have prepared content exclusively for you, which you are welcome to share. You can also follow us on the most popular Social Media platforms, we will document our project there daily, the posts may be posted of course.