As part of the Geneva Trialogue 2021, the European research project, Crowd4SDG hosted an online session on March 18 entitled“Helping young innovators turn ideas into action”.
Written by Nanette Richard, International Communications Project Manager
The Geneva 2021 Trialogue Geneva Trialogue was a one-day event bringing together players from academia, the private and multilateral sectors to discuss knowledge and learning tools, platforms and initiatives for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Decision-makers from these three circles came together to deepen their understanding of the issues, stimulate reflection and proactively formulate proposals on how academia, international organizations and the private sector can together support and transform the world of education for the SDGs. .
The Crowd4SDG session“Helping young innovators turn ideas into action”was moderated by Romain Muller from CERN. It featured a panel of experts from the UNIGE Entrepreneur Lab, Goodwall, Global Green Connect, ITU, TechStars and Young Water Solutions. The group gave an overview of how their own projects got off the ground. They also discussed how they help young innovators and entrepreneurs bring their projects to life through educational programs, coaching, mentoring, best practices and suggested ways to find new opportunities to create communities and ecosystems. The experts advised students to focus on the problem they want to solve, not the idea. Students should remain flexible, embrace change, integrate other stakeholders and celebrate creativity.
Crowd4SDG objectives
The Crowd4SDG project promotes citizen science aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a focus on climate action. The first call focused on urban water resilience. Its aim is to assess the usefulness of practical innovations developed by members, and to research and study how artificial intelligence applications can enhance and provide effective monitoring of SDG targets and indicators by citizens.
Students turn ideas into action to make an impact
Five teams of students from Brazil, Côte d'Ivoire, China, India, the United States and Europe tackled the theme of urban water resilience, which they focused on during a two-week online workshop organized by the association IdeaSquare at CERN. They followed a series of lectures, workshops and daily assignments using design thinking, among other innovative methodologies, to refine and prototype their initial ideas. These teams were finalists in the first Crowd4SDG call for ideas, which attracted the interest of over 100 students worldwide.
The gear cycle
The initiatives organized by Crowd4SDG follow a robust innovation cycle called GEAR (gather, evaluate, accelerate, refine). The GEAR cycle began with an online selection and coaching of citizen-generated climate action ideas in autumn 2020. The most promising projects were then accelerated at a challenge-based innovation workshop organized by IdeaSquare at CERN in January 2021.
The projects
Five projects were presented in January, including that of a student from the University of Paris, Parismollo, and his Potamoi team. The Potamoi team seeks to optimize the process of cleaning hydrological data to enable improved flood forecasts and, consequently, reduce the number of flood-related deaths and property damage. The team is passionate about the impact it can have on water resilience issues, and its project can be viewed at here. The two best projects “Well Yes!” and “To See to Care” were refined at the SDG conference to give them a boost on the road to creating real impact. Watch the video here
Crowd4SDG members
The Crowd4SDG consortium is made up of the University of Paris is made up of the University of Paris and its Centre de Recherche et d'Interdisciplinarité CRI, the University of Geneva, CERN, the Spanish National Research Council and its Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, the Politecnico di Milano and the United Nations Institute for Research and Training.
For more information on the projects, visit the website and videos on social media :
- Crowd4SDG
- Youtube
The Geneva Trialogue 2021 playlist is now available here : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL20urtx5WSptbhlbCuNnK-MyUVTAY8ffm
