#climatekiceducation

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Climate KIC Mobility Funded Project: Nepali Start-up community

Part of creating these laptops was to use the traditional Nepali crafts and skills to build a new technology based product, to reveal how their traditional crafts can adapt and evolve to suite current markets and trends.

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Dutch weather anchor Reinier van den Berg is asking Climate-KIC students across Europe to come up with innovative solutions to extreme droughts caused by climate change. Van den Berg, a regular fixture on Dutch national TV, challenges the students in this video clip where he explains the causes of extreme droughts and forecasts the possible corresponding scenarios for transport, forest fires, agriculture and access to drinking water. The climatologist is scheduled to deliver a Climate-KIC SPARK! lecture on how to deal with the future consequences of climate change in Europe on 3 March 2014 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. During the three weeks leading up to the event, participants are asked to come up with solutions which will be presented on the day. See our website for more information: www.climate-kic.org

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It is the first time that Climate-KIC has made an animated video. In under two minutes it highlight the activities that we do and inspires those who are more familiar with us and our work.

Join our education community today. 

(via http://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=GMQiz2gI_ZY&u=/watch?v=mgFJYM8ES9M&feature=share)

www.climate-kic.org

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Most PhD students try to perfect a way of describing their research in a few sentences. These ‘elevator pitches’ (cringe) come in useful when meeting new people at seminars, conferences or the pub. My own little snippet is this: dust from the Sahara fertilises the Amazon rainforest.

http://climatesnack.com/2014/01/02/saharan-dust-the-amazons-fertiliser/#more-1555

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Climate-KIC Community Newsletter: January 2014

Jan 2014 Newsletter by climatekiceducation

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Educating the new innovators

Fresh from Climate-KIC's two-day language of innovation course in Bologna, Italy, Giovanni Sogari blogs about the essence of a common language in bringing new ideas to today's climate change practices.  

Organised by Climate-KIC’s Emilia-Romagna regional implementation centre (RIC) and Aster, the Italian consortium for innovation and technology transfer, the first “Language of innovation” course welcomed participants from across Europe last month.

Generally speaking the goal of the course was to develop communication skills and understand the importance of new start-up product and service ideas - which address specific and relevant climate change challenges - to penetrate the market and meet the needs of final users.

The introductory session initiated us to Climate-KIC’s broader aims of their business and education opportunities for a more sustainable society. We were presented with the vision of being part of its community among different actors (researchers, public administrators and business representatives), who despite working in separate fields and with distinctive roles, all deal with common causes: climate change challenges, economic sustainability and social innovation.

During the first day the participants had an intensive overview on the role of a clear and efficient communication by bridging and discussing our experiences with writing scientific papers, journalistic articles, presenting and pitching and executing a communication strategy.

On the second day all participants were involved in a working group competition in order to practice the main concepts which came out of the education sessions. The task was to face a specific problem in the climate change mitigation and adaptation issues.

Every group made a presentation where possible solutions were showed and discussed, followed by constructive feedback from experts.

The projects presented by the three groups included a mobile app to find out the environmental impact (LCA) of food products, new technologies to convert urban waste water into energy and the role of green roofs in the cities to reduce energy cost emissions.

This provided ample discussion points during the final session, when we networked with people from the RIC Emilia-Romagna and Pioneers into Practice programme in downtown Bologna.

An intriguing aspect of the two-day course was the spin-off “Climate Media Factory”, an interdisciplinary media lab initiated by the Film and Television University Konrad Wolf and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. It made us understand the importance and the role new media plays in communicating sustainable practices to the public opinion, which fed into our discussions focusing in on the key factors which drive the change management process in today’s business world and transform new ideas into practice.

It has been a wonderful experience and I must say that academic research, public advisors and entrepreneurship seem like to have something in common: the language of innovation.

Giovanni Sogari holds an MSc in Food Science at Parma University and is currently in his last year as a PhD student at the University of Piacenza (Italy) where his main research activities focus on food economic issues and consumers’ behaviour towards environmentally friendly products. He writes for a weekly newspaper about the agrifood world and sustainability issues.

Keynote speakers during the two day intensive course were Dr. Sergio Pistoi, a science writer and consultant, Dr. Jürgen Kropp, professor in Climate Change and Sustainable Development at Potsdam University, Andrea Bondi, Business and Innovation unit Manager at Trento RISE, Arianna Cecchi, Climate-KIC-RIC Project Manager in Bruxelles, Carolina Mateo of Istituto Valenciano de la Edificacion (IVE) and Daniela Sani, Climate KIC-RIC Innovation Manager. 

To find our more about Climate-KIC and its professional outreach educational programmes, click here. 

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Climate-KIC Student stories: Canada Calling

Climate-KIC Student stories:

Peter Ils-Boldt 

TU Berlin

Business Engineering Climate-KIC EIT Master label.

Peter joined Climate-KIC's education programme in 2012 and recently applied for mobility funding to undertake master's thesis research at McGill University, Canada.

He answers our questions about his experiences there where he studied the climate impact of BRIC economies and the challenges of the supply side of carbon based energy resources. 

What did you research?

The economic future of developing and transitioning economies and the future of combating climate change are closely intertwined.

As developing countries and the BRIC nations become increasingly important in the globalised economies, they also start to have a higher impact on climate change as well as on the way global supply chains and businesses are shaped.

My research at McGill in Canada concentrated on the challenges and specifics of the management of developing countries and their economic upgrading.

I further studied the specifics and challenges of the mining industry to broaden my understanding of the underlying mechanisms of this sector which is so closely tied to the supply side of carbon based energy resources (such as oil, oil sands, gas, etc), as well as potentially very environmentally sensitive practices that mining involves.

Why do you think it is important to understand what drives growth in these countries and industries?

Combating climate change is not only about reducing carbon emissions, it’s also about conserving the natural diversity of the world to preserve the natural sinks we have which are absolutely indispensable in absorbing human based emissions.

Environmentally friendly, socially responsible and poverty alleviating approaches are key factors to ensure that these new players in the world economy become climate advocates instead of being a further burden to the planet.

Business models, institutions and regulatory frameworks in these countries determine whether their economic growth is achieved at the cost of their biodiversity and environment or whether alternative, less exploitative pathways can be followed. Understanding these factors is key to finding solutions which ensures the second, climate friendlier alternative.

What did you find out in Canada?

This one is hard to summarise but I got the impression that climate change is somewhat less of an issue than it is in Europe. However, in other ways new managerial activities that support the notion of sustainability and change in practices seem to be more easily adapted and incorporated.

I found many new business model approaches to address the different dimensions of sustainability. I found further examples of how climate change is connected with many different aspects of businesses and society and how we need to incorporate these aspects.

I learned how regulation, industry standards, public pressure, corporate governance values, entrepreneurship and education are all closely intertwined. They affect each other in many ways and build an interconnected net that determines the outcome of measures that are designed to change current practices.

You have travelled a lot and done research in Adelaide, Madrid and Berlin. Why did Montreal appeal to you in terms of climate-change mitigation and adaptation?

Mining is particularly interesting because the impression you get is that there’s common consensus that all the extractable oil in the oil sands will be extracted. Therefore the focus is more concerned with adaptation methods. Think of it as reducing the impact of the industry within the boundaries of not limiting the supply side.

Outside of university I was interested in a lot of volunteering activity which was concerned with climate-change mitigation. Green days, local food movements, guides on how to reduce your own ecological footprint etc., seemed to be as vibrant as they are in Berlin.

Was there any added value you gained by using your mobility fund rather than desk based research at home?

There are two major things which I really like about studying at McGill. First is its competitiveness. While I don’t know if I would have wanted to study in such an environment for my whole curriculum, it was definitely a very rewarding experience. Being constantly challenged by your classes as well as your classmates pushed me to new frontiers and made me efficient and effective in a way I could not work before.

The second thing I really liked about the courses at McGill - and at McGill itself - was the many speaker series we had. In my courses and outside of my courses I got to hear talks from top leaders in different industries and often had the opportunity to interact with them in discussions. This enriched the concepts we learned and connected the university life with the real world.

Overall it gave more depth to my learning experience and gave me the opportunity to have a look into the current challenges and trends of the respective industries. And of course it was also an excellent networking opportunity.

How did Climate-KIC’s mobility fund benefit your research?

Climate-KIC’s mobility fund made my semester at McGill so much easier, more enjoyable and enabled me to get so much more out of my time at McGill and Canada.

Thanks to the mobility fund, I was able to actually go there and engage in (industry) talks, student groups and excursions. This intensified my learning experience immensely and enabled me to go far beyond the course materials of my classes.

Being able to witness how the other students and teachers at McGill think, approach problems, what techniques they use and how they make life-choices greatly enriched my own life as well as my academic skill sets, especially with regard to innovation activities it is important to always open up to new solutions and approaches.

Being exposed to new and different mind-sets of a top-notch Canadian university proved to be a very interesting and a hopefully transforming experience. Climate-KIC made this exchange possible and I will always be thankful for that!

Is there any advice would you give students interested in this?

Apply now, there is no reason good enough not to.

www.climate-kic.org 

Our mobility programme provides funds for Master students to undertake research across the world for climate-related thesis. 

To find out more about Climate-KIC and our mobility programme, please visit our website.