The winners of the WOTRO Science for global development Battle of Ideas

WOTRO Science for global development was organizing this interesting battle for international students in honor of their 50th anniversary! The students picked a theme (Food, Water, Security and Rule of Law, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Inclusive development) and started cracking in search for innovative ideas to make this world a better place. An important challenge was that besides coming up with a good idea, the students had to invest in the social innovative part. In short, come up with different methods of working and implementation of their ideas.

Hems Zwier of the Social Innovation Lab teamed up with WOTRO to create the most exciting and challenging sandpit ever. Experts from all over the world joined in and worked with the students in the final sandpit on the 15th of October. The Battle of Ideas is not only a challenge but also a co-creation event. The students challenged each other with the objective to even make their opponent better by reflecting on their ideas. Call it a Competitive Cooperative Challenge! Besides Hems, Anook and Maria joined in to facilitate the teams.

The Battle had an energizing effect on the audience of the WOTRO 50 years Forward Thinking Conference. Besides the harvesting of the students brilliant ideas, the hidden agenda was to seek new ways of co-creation in scientific research. For an impression of the Battle click this link