Social Entrepreneurship in the Greater Region

The project aimed to develop social innovations for the Greater Region by creating conditions of competition and collaboration between internationally composed student founder teams. The Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, with its network of cooperation partners, evaluated the marketability of the founders‘ ideas and advised the student teams as a sounding board.

The project started with a 3-day online kick-off camp in an online format with workshops on „Social Entrepreneurship“ and „Business Model Canvas.“ Subsequently, the transnational founding teams virtually developed their concept idea including market analysis, segmentation and positioning. Then, they presented it to the practice partners in a mid-term meeting on-site at Trier University of Applied Sciences. Weekly digital founder team coaching sessions by the accompanying teachers and coaches supported the students in this process. These coaching sessions were supplemented by digital input sessions by successful founders and social innovators, who gave the students an understanding of topics relating to a start-up through expert lectures.

During a 3-day final conference in Luxembourg, the student teams developed a resource plan, including a business plan, and presented their final pitch to investors. The founding teams developed business concepts for the production of beer from unsold baked goods; an app to provide quick access to expired food; the production of a pizza from rescued food in the region; and the recycling of plastic waste from Sri Lanka into plastic for the construction industry.