After 24 hours of intense preparation, brainstorming, and teamwork, each team, with the help of mentors, presented their projects to the jury who selected the “Local winners”.

The seven winning teams have earned their ticket to Poitiers, where they will showcase their innovative solutions at the RI4C2 event, “Unveiling the University of the Future: Kick-off the EC2U Pan European Knowledge Ecosystem,” on June 11th!

Here are the seven winning local challenges :

• Poitiers: How can rainwater be collected to create urban cool islands?
  Challenge-giver: Fondation Poitiers Université.
• Pavie: What innovative solutions or approaches can be proposed to ease the current challenges in international student housing or to advocate for innovative solutions to this issue?
  Challenge-giver: International Mobility unit – University of Pavia
• Turku: How might we recognize and consider the diverse values of nature in urban planning?
  Challenge-giver: Department of Geography and Geology, University of Turku
• Jena: How can we make the Education Bike more inclusive for future education spaces, especially for teaching digital skills and technologies? What technical equipment and decorations could be added? For example, sustainable power supply, WiFi, etc. How can we reach different target groups? And how can we make the learning experiences interactive?
  Challenge-giver: Volkshochschule Jena
• Iasi: Teleportaition-Engage! – How can we find better transportation solutions, to decongest traffic, reduce time spent in traffic, & reduce pollution?
  Challenge-giver: RI4C2 WP6 Team Iasi
• Coimbra: New public policies or educational programmes to promote healthy eating habits and physical activity from an early age, while also considering effective measures to combat food waste, such as those conducted on a daily basis by the big food retail companies in Portugal.
  Challenge-giver: Institute of Interdisciplinary Research Team (University of Coimbra)
• Virtual track: How can we make scientific knowledge more accessible and combat scientific scepticism, particularly in regions where prejudices or mistrust of research, scientific information, and scientists are common?
  Challenge-giver: JenaVersum network, Jena

Although winners were selected as a part of the procedure, the Makeathon’s core idea was not competition but collaboration. This successful pilot event indeed highlighted the importance of collaboration, learning, and connecting with new people. It empowered us to envision a brighter future together in Europe.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone involved in making this event possible: the organisation team, the challenge-givers, the mentors, the jury members, and of course, the participants.

Have a look at some pictures from the event:

• Virtual track team

• Turku team

• Poitiers team

• Pavia Team

• Jena team

• Iasi team

• Coimbra team