EuroTeQ Collider Sommer 2023
A Successful Round for TUM
We are particularly pleased that our TUM teams were able to prevail at the European level during the EuroTeQaThon and that of the total of 18 teams from six different technical universities (Paris, Eindhoven, Tallinn, Prague, Copenhagen, Munich), two of the three winning teams came from TUM!
- Impressions of the EuroTeQaThon at CTU in Prague: here
- Live stream final presentations of projects, the award ceremony and overall winner announcement: here
After the local Collider Project Weeks, which are conducted independently at each of the six EuroTeQ universities, three winning teams from each university were invited to the EuroTeQaThon in Prague, from June 10-12, 2023.
During the final presentations at TUM level on June 02, 2023, the following teams prevailed and qualified for the EuroTeQaThon.
Challenge Collaborator
Susanne Grohs-von Reichenbach - Founder of Think Digital Green, Digital Business Innovator, Expert for Storytelling
Eslam Shoaala – Workday GmbH - Software Engineer, M.Sc Politics and Technology
Waste Challenge
Software Greengineer. Empower the People Who Shape The Digital World Day by Day.
Software developers need to become aware of the waste (energy) generated by their codes in order to use bestpractices to reduce the environmental footprint of their final product (Desktop and web applications, mobile apps, games, robots, operating systems, network systems, etc).
About the Students' Solution
We created an all-in-one online course, which is informing software developers on the principles of sustainability, and the contribution of the software industry in the world’s carbon footprint by measuring it with the help of various footprint calculators. Moreover, we add sustainable practices for their professional life and show them solutions, which can be implemented relatively quick.
More Information
All information about the waste challenge here
All information about the student solutions here.
Sophia Ehrmann. Picture: Anna Jeřábková
Challenge Collaborator
Nishant Tiku from The Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh in collaboration with Dr. Arch. Pamela Durán Díaz from the TUM Centre of Land, Water and Environmental Risk Management
Waste Challenge
The toxic trail of tourism: the highest dumpster in the himalayas
Management of plastic waste generated by the massive influx of tourists in the Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh, India which has a severe negative impact on the environment and local population.
About the Students' Solution
We are promoting a holistic waste management solution focusing on the collection and recycling of plastic waste to create a circular economy model for plastic in Ladakh. By recycling plastic waste into construction bricks for insulated housing we are adressing three problems with one solution: The plastic waste problem, the demand for insulated housing material, and the unemployment rate. Further benefit is delivered to the local population by incentivizing them to collect plastic waste with a government buyback scheme for plastic waste that presents an attractive source for income and is financed through a waste tax for tourists.
More Information
All information about the waste challenge in the video here.
All information about the student solutions here.
Challenge Collaborator
Nathalie Albersmeyer, The Westwing Group
Waste Challenge
AGEC Directive: The Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy Law. Putting Law into Practice in European E-Commerce: Current laws do not provide a guideline on how to calculate recyclability which leads to a lack of comparability and confusion for the customer and producer on how to make sustainable choices.
About the Students' Solution
We provide a recyclability index in which components of recyclability are weighted/ categorised in order to give the EU commission a tool to compare the recyclability of textile products. This can be implemented in the guidelines for the Digital Product Passport. It will allow companies to use a single method rather than methods to calculate recyclability and will be based on the French AGEC directive (a law on anti-waste that mandates waste disclosures by companies) and other scientific based categories.
About the Challenge Collaborator
The Westwing Group is the European leader in inspiration-based Home & Living eCommerce. Department: Quality & Sustainability within Sourcing and OperationsThe scale of our operations means we have a responsibility to the planet and the people on it. This responsibility is something we take seriously. We are proud to have built a company that drives creativity, inspires our customers, genuinely cares for our employees, and works closely with our business partners on sustainability. From sourcing to merchandising, we are committed to making ethical and sustainable choices along our value chain, while minimizing our environmental footprint and creating positive social impacts.
More Information
Detailed information about the waste challenge here
Detailed information about the student solutions here.
Third EuroTeQ Collider at TUM
In spring 2023, the third EuroTeQ Collider started. During the project weeks, 80 students from different field of studies worked on a total of 15 exciting challenges on the topic of "Leave no waste behind" and developed fascinating projects! Part of the project weeks was an intensive working weekend in Berg Schwaneck, where all groups were working on their projects, finalizing ideas and practicing their pitches.
The final presentations of the third Collider took place on June 2nd, 2023. Three winning teams on the TUM level in the categories CITIES, ENERGY, CONSUMPTION have been selected to present their projects at the European level, the EuroTeQaThon in Prague from June 10 - 12, 2023. Here they met the winning teams from all six partner universities.
We would like to thank all challenge partners and mentors for their great commitment and support. Without them, the EuroTeQ Collider would not be possible!
We would also like to thank all the jury members for their feedback, guidance, and experiece during the presentations at TUM. The jury prepared our teams for a successful EuroTeQaThon. Thank you, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Müller, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Norbert Gebbeken, Kiara Sweeney, Prof. Dr. Miranda Schreurs, Nina Weingarten, Prof. Dr. Sebastian Goerg, Dipl.- Ing. Claus Lindenblatt, Dr. Thomas Kiefer, Dr. Carlos Cuevas, Kathrin Kirsch, Sandra Passreiter und Jason Lochert.
An insight into the project weeks
Short weekly updates about the EuroTeQ Collider at TUM.
Written by Naim Conrad Vilabrera.
5th - 7th of May, 2023 - An Eventful Weekend at Burg Schwaneck
"For me, the main benefit of the Collider is the possibility to learn practically rather than another theory class. I'm also really enjoying the Burg Schwaneck weekend, because it is quite unique to spend two entire days with your team working together. Most group projects are asynchronous and function remotely. This is an excellent opportunity to network and build relationships with people across TUM."
- A statement from Visesh Murali, a student of the Westing Challenge - AGEC Directive: The Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy Law. Putting Law into Practice in European E-Commerce.
Mid-April until the End of May, 2023 - Project Weeks
During this time, every team will work individually on their projects. Teams are expected to organize regular group meetings and mentor sessions. In addition, the TUM EuroTeQ organizers require that each team do a weekly check-in session via Zoom to check the project's progress and to provide support and feedback. So far, there have been 2 check-in sessions. It is quite impressive to see the impressive development of the projects. During the 2nd check-in sessions, teams were required to:
1) Describe your challenge with only three sentences.
2) Formulate a vision statement. What is the long-term purpose of this challenge? What would the team envision if given unlimited time to develop solutions?
3) Describe your solutions with only three sentences: How can you "solve" this challenge in the upcoming weeks? Maybe the team is developing the groundwork for future research or an existing project . The solutions can be a policy paper, prototype, website, conceptual draft for a project, feasibility study, holistic overview, or a combination.
4) Division of Labor and how each member contributes to the team's efforts.
11th - 14th of April, 2023 - The Workshop Week Amplifies Students' Skills
At TUM, the EuroTeQ Collider is more than a competition that only asks students to provide solutions to complex challenges. It is also a course, in which students receive training that improves their skills and, ultimately, improves the presentation and prototyping of solutions. Over 4 days, the following workshops and lecturers were offered to the students.
1. Team Building Workshop
2. Design Thinking Workshop
3. Project Management Workshop
4. How to Build a Start-up Workshop
5. Green Deal and Sustainability. Sustainable Solutions, Communicating Sustainable Solutions Lectures
6. Creating Software Prototypes to Enrich your Project Pitches with MathWorks Workshop
"Thanks to the Workshop Week, I got to know helpful organizational tools for project work."
- A statement from an anonymous student
5th of April, 2023 - Students and Challenges Collide at the Launch Event
In the morning on a Zoom call full of faces of more than 80 participants, the EuroTeQ team welcomed students and challenge collaborators to the official launch of the TUM EuroTeQ Collider 2023 after several months of preparation. On this day, challenge collaborators introduced to the students for the first time their challenges from the theme, "Leave No Waste Behind." The students were not intimidated. It was clear that some students knew immediately which challenges they wanted to accept. Look below for the information about the challenges. After a Q&A session and information about the next steps to create a team, the launch event was finished.
Challenges of the third EuroTeQ Collider at TUM
Participants of the EuroTeQ Collider were able to choose from the following challenges and mentors.
Waste Challenge Title:
Leave No Waste Behind - Sustainable Urban Farming Workshops in an All-Round Carefree Package
About the Challenge Collaborator
Ackerpause is a program of AckerCompany GmbH and has been bringing vegetable plots to neighborhoods and businesses, as well as senior and care facilities since 2019. Its roots lie in the non-profit Acker e. V. with its multiple award-winning educational programs on vegetable gardening for children and young people. Since then, Ackerpause has expanded its portfolio to include adult education and, under the Acker umbrella, shares a common vision of greater appreciation for nature and food Germany-wide.
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Increasing Circularity of Solar Energy Components
About the Challenge Collaborator
Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB) is a publicly regulated bank based in Munich, Germany and one of the six Landesbanken (State Bank). It is 75% owned by the Free State of Bavaria. With a balance of €220 billion and over 8,000 employees in the group, it is the seventh-largest financial institution in Germany. BayernLB has a portfolio exclusively targeted at corporate clients.
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Does Battery Recycling Compete with Second-Life Usages?
About the Challenge Collaborator
Founded in 2019, STABL Energy is one of the most innovative startups for the energy transition: winning the PV-magazine Megawatt Award in 2020, the EES Award in 2022, and being named a global Top100 Energy Startup in 2021. It is funded by renowned and experienced Tech VCs from Germany and Switzerland. STABL Energy is united by the vision of enabling a climate-neutral energy system: with safe, sustainable, and efficient battery storage systems.
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Creating the Universities of Tomorrow
About the Challenge Collaborator
This challenge is offered by, Alexander Holas and Catherine Y. Koch, who represent the TUM:Junge Akademie Team, “elecTUM." During a 20-month scholarship, together with six other students, Holas and Koch developed a project that focused on assessing the energy consumption of university lectures and delivering the tool, elecCalc, as its main result. Now that the scholarship has ended, elecTUM would like to allow other students to broaden elecCalc with the aim to construct a tool that can be sustainably used by TUM and other universities!
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Mobile Green Study Units at TUM
About the Challenge Collaborator
Plant a Seed is a unique interdisciplinary educational project for sustainability at the Technical Universityof Munich (TUM) with a mission to raise awareness about food production and consumption, link people with nature by encouraging and strengthening their connection and visualize sustainability on the university campus. Plant a seed was awarded as the first sustainable living lab at TUM and recognized as a promising practice by the UN Habitat Youth Initiative!
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Leave No Food Behind: Feed Who is in Need!
About the Challenge Collaborator
Corinna Doll is a TUM student of political science who did an internship in Brussels where lobbyism events occur throughout the year. The discrepancy of well-paid people eating and drinking for free, while other people have food insecurity just around the corner, created a strong and unbearable impression. But the problem is complicated. Many smart people are necessary to disentangle the problem and work on practical solutions. Corinna wants to support the project group(s) with her knowledge of the situation and a network of contacts, which can provide more detailed information.
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Stop wasting buildings! Capturing Circular Qualities of Non-Residential Buildings
About the Challenge Collaborator
The challenge addresses diverse stakeholders from the real estate industry, building design and construction as well as urban planning while providing entrepreneurial opportunities. Behind the challenge are the Institute of Energy Efficient and Sustainable Design and Building (ENPB) and the Chair of Circular Economy (CE). Both are apart of the TUM Mission Network Circular Economy - CirculaTUM, which aims to reinvent the way we do business and decouple prosperity from resource consumption.
The Institute of Energy Efficient and Sustainable Design and Building (ENPB) conducts research on a fundamentally sustainable transformation of our built environment.
Team: Carsten Schade, Johannes Staudt
The Chair of Circular Economy (CE) contributes to the transition of industry and society towards sustainability through developing, assessing and optimizing circular economy and bioeconomy systems.
Team: Josef Huber, Vanessa Heinrich, Rosina Lohmeyer
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
System Generation for Smart Waste Collection
About the Challenge Collaborator
Infineon Technologies AG is a world leader in semiconductor solutions that make life easier, safer and greener. Microelectronics from Infineon are the key to a better future. With around 50,280 employees worldwide, Infineon is the link between the real and the digital world. In the fiscal year 2021, Infineon reported revenue of more than €11 billion.
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
AGEC Directive: The Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy Law.
Putting Law into Practice in European E-Commerce
About the Challenge Collaborator
The Westwing Group - The European leader in inspiration-based Home & Living eCommerce. Department: Quality & Sustainability within Sourcing and Operations
The scale of our operations means we have a responsibility to the planet and the people on it. This responsibility is something we take seriously. We are proud to have built a company that drives creativity, inspires our customers, genuinely cares for our employees, and works closely with our business partners on sustainability. From sourcing to merchandising, we are committed to making ethical and sustainable choices along our value chain, while minimizing our environmental footprint and creating positive social impacts.
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Leave No Political Waste Behind
About the Challenge Collaborator
Ahmed Maati is a postdoctoral researcher at the Professorship of Policy Analysis at the Hochschule für Politik. Our team focuses on, among other things, how to facilitate technological innovation under democratic conditions. It investigates the opportunities and challenges new technologies pose for ecological, economic, and societal sustainability. In doing so, we particularly focus on comparative analyses of different political regimes and state models with respect to polity, politics, and different policy areas.
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Software Greengineer.
Empower the People Who Shape The Digital World Day by Day.
About the Challenge Collaborator
Susanne Grohs-von Reichenbach - Founder of Think Digital Green, Digital Business Innovator, Expert for Storytelling
Eslam Shoaala – Workday GmbH - Software Engineer, M.Sc Politics and Technology
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Mining Towards Renewable Energies.
The Waste Trail of Extractive Industries for the Energetic Transition.
About the Challenge Collaborator
The multi-disciplinary team of the research project “The potential for AI in the extractive industries to promote multi-objective optimization” includes TUM’s Chair of Land Management, Chair of Resources Economics and the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence.
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here and the video of the launch event
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
Trash to Fresh – Building a Sustainable Living Lab with a Circular Economy Approach
About the Challenge Collaborator
My name is Veronica Becker and I am not only the course coordinator for the EuroTeQ Collider, but also a challenge collaborator in this round!
Originally coming from a Bachelor in Geosciences, and with a great passion for nature and earth processes, I wanted to learn more about the consequences of human impact on our ecosystems, which lead me to the studies of Environmental Engineering. Here, I specialized in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus approach and Hydrogeology, Groundwater and Geothermal Energy. During my studies, I initiated and implemented the student organization Plant a Seed, that was awarded as the first sustainable living lab and recognized as a promising practice by the UN Youth Habitat Initiative. With the intention to advance sustainable measures and inspire other universities to follow, I brought Plant a Seed to Mexico, where I was working with a local initiative and local students to work towards food sovereignty and capacity building in a small urban district. This project was wrapped up in my Master thesis, where I established a Theory of Change approach for a bottom-up urban farming initiative to strengthen food sovereignty and environmental protection in Mexico, which was also recognized as a promising practice by the Climate Change director of Puebla, and we are currently working to replicate the project in more urban neighborhoods.
In 2022, I joined the Professorship of Policy Analysis at TU Munich as a researcher and project manager for the "EuroTeQ Collider 2022" project. I am also a yoga instructor and coach. :) I have intiated multiple projects from scratch and I have a great network and would be happy to share all these wonderful contacts with you in order to help you – help us – develop this absolute crazy, but very unique and colorful concept together! ;)
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge here
View the student's report here
Waste Challenge Title
The toxic trail of tourism: the highest dumpster in the himalayas
About the Challenge Collaborator
As mentioned during the Launch event, this challenge was submitted very last minute. Due to the fact, that it is an extremely important topic, we decided to accept this challenge regardless.
This is what Dr. Pamela Duran send me beforhand: After talking to my main collaborator Nishant Tiku from HIAL, he told me there is this bigger challenge about the waste tourists leave behind. Just to give you an idea, there's a valley between the mountains that is being used as a dumpster. There's no way to recycle these tons of waste (mainly plastic). There's already a policy to ban single use plastic, but it only applies to bags, while plastic bottles and the wrapping of junk food remain.
Waste Challenge
All information about the waste challenge in the video here.
View the student's report here (Group 1: WasteWise)
View the student's report here (Group 2: The Himalayan LEGOS)