Innovation Sprint with fairnergy
Written by StartGlocal on .
Car-free cities are no longer a utopia. Large cities such as Vienna, Bogota and Oslo are already partly car-free. But is this also possible in Kleve? Students and employees of the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (HSRW) have taken up this challenge together with the local start-up fairnergy and a representative of the city of Kleve.
Facing the real challenge of a local company - is the idea behind the Innovation Sprint Workshop of the StartGlocal project of the Center for Research, Innovation and Transfer. Divided into three teams and under the guidance of a creative coach, 20 participants from all faculties of the HSRW found creative approaches to solutions and presented them in a pitch. The jury, consisting of representatives of the university, the city of Kleve and the start-up fairnergy, chose the best idea of the day.
The winners thought about the parking situation outside of Kleve and came up with a modern solution: Mobility Hubs. In addition to parking spaces, the Mobility Hubs offer charging stations for e-cars and e-bikes, a gas station and public transportation to simplify the way into the city.
In the other groups, discussions included making public transportation more accessible to ensure the inclusion and participation of the population.
Philip Weykamp, founder of fairnergy is happy about the successful Innovation Sprint: "It was great to experience the creativity of the students and employees live. The solutions developed can serve as the basis for the first step towards a real change in mobility in Kleve.". To make the event’s sucess visible in the long term, the start-up Fairnergy is planting another tree for the StartGlocal Forest.
We would like to thank our cooperation partners the Lower Rhine Chamber of Industry and Commerce Duisburg-Wesel-Kleve, the city of Kleve, the start-up fairnergy as well as the Technology Center Kleve and all participants who made this day possible.
If your company is also looking for innovative and creative minds who can support you in your challenge, please feel free to contact us.
The event was great, it was insightful and inspiring experience, where we got to learn from the experts and from each other, exchange ideas and see different perspectives, I would definitely do it again.
The event was an hands-on experience of working in a team to bring about innovative solutions to any given problem. I look forward to taking part in such workshops in future.