Sustainable+development
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'Think Out of the Box,' Team Circos Wins the P4G Innovation Sprint
<The winning team of the P4G Innovation Sprint poses with the Crown Prince of Denmark (sixth from the left in the first row) and President Shin (fifth from the left in the first row) during the awarding ceremony.>
Team Circos from KAIST and Denmark made a new sustainable business model for Hempel, a global coating supplier group in Denmark, and won the first prize at the P4G (the Partnership for Green Growth and Global Goals) Innovation Sprint held at KAIST’s Seoul campus on May 22. The six-member team was awarded one million KRW in prize money by the Crown Prince of Denmark. Two of winning team members have the privilege of traveling to visit Hempel in Denmark.
The winning team thought outside the box, inspired by box wine which reduced the sales price from traditional bottled wine. Six teams made up of members from different academic disciplines spent two nights and three days brainstorming ways to resolve the challenges of corporations such as Velux and Hempel from Denmark and SK from Korea.
The P4G Innovation Sprint is one of the events co-hosted by KAIST and Technological University of Denmark in celebration of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations establishment between Denmark and Korea and the 8th anniversary of the Green Growth Alliance between the two countries. The Crown Prince Couple also made a royal visit to Korea in honor of the 60th anniversary celebration and Green Growth Alliance between the two countries.
This Innovation Sprint aimed to develop young academics’ perspectives, skills, and talents for the next generation to better research the Sustainable Development Goals set by UN.
Three teams made their final five-minute pitches before the Crown Prince and President Sung-Chul
Shin and responded to questions from the four-member jury.
The Crown Prince of Denmark and President Shin both agreed that the collaborative and convergent ideas will address global problems.
The Crown Prince stressed in his congratulatory remarks the importance of partnership in this polarizing world to achieve sustainable improvements saying, “Partnerships are only possible to sustain through collaboration and hard work while staying curious, creative, and critical. " He also shared the special relationship with KAIST. His father-in-law Professor John Donaldson used to be a visiting professor of applied mathmatics at KAIST back in 2003.
President Shin added, “Collaboration across boundaries is most critical for responding to these issues. In that sense, this P4G Innovation Sprint is a shining example for demonstrating the collaborative efforts between teammates from diverse disciplines. When we work together and build convergent ideas, we will be more innovative and go further.”
<Winning team member Nicolai Thorball from DTU pitches at the final in the presence of the Crown Prince of Denmark and KAIST President Shin.>
“The canned packaging in the paint industry results in 40 times more carbon emission in the course of production. However, when using aluminum packaging which is recyclable, the waste amount will be cut dramatically,” pitched Nicolai Thorball from DTU on exchange at Seoul National University. Nicolai, whose major is environmental engineering, is one of two Danish students including Thomsen Xandra Flyvbjerg from the University of Southern Denmark. Flyvbjergy, majoring in business, is now on exchange at Sungkynkwan University.
“I am very glad to have the chance to understand the concept of the circular economy and green growth at the sprint. It was also very challenging to make ideation from so many ideas brainstormed,” said Dong-Eun Lee, a KAIST undergraduate from the Department of Biological Sciences. He said that he learned a lot from his two other teammates who are from the Program of Green Business & Policy at KAIST College of Business, Jae-Hee Park and Kyung-Hyun Kim. Juho Park majoring in mechanical engineering at KAIST was one of the team.
Circos’ solution for a sustainable model received acclaim from the jury members. DTU Senior Vice President Marianne Thellerson, one of jurors, claimed their model has very high market feasibility, saying, “Their idea could be commercialized right now into the market.” Professor Hee-Kyung Park from KAIST who helped participants’ ideation as one of four mentors said, “The winning team perfectly met all the components of the evaluation criteria, Solution, Acceleration, and Pitch.”
At this sprint, 10 students from Denmark and 29 KAIST students were divided into 6 teams and given the challenges of three companies. The Danish window facility company Velux presented its future glass window system and the paint company Hempel their circular economic new business model. SK challenged the students to help it become a global clean energy solution company. The event was based on a hacker blueprint that found the optimal solution to the topics proposed.
2019.05.23 View 7715 -
ISCN and GULF Share Best Practices Report
The International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) and the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF) co-hosted a conference at the 2016 World Economic Forum held on January 20-23, 2016 in Davos, Switzerland, to present exemplary campus sustainability case studies provided by the world’s leading universities.
A total of 20 universities, including KAIST, Harvard University, University of Oxford, Yale University, the National University of Singapore, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich), reported on their endeavors to demonstrate sustainable development in higher education in three different panels at the conference: Developing Skills and Building Capacities, Collaborating to Catalyze Change, and Innovating for Efficient Built Environments.
President Sung-Mo Kang of KAIST gave a presentation on the Saudi Aramco-KAIST CO2 Management Center as a sustainable development model for KAIST.
KAIST and Saudi Aramco, the world’s leading fossil-fuel provider, joined forces in 2013 to establish a joint research center on the reduction and management of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a major driver of climate change.
The research center, located at the KAIST campus in Daejeon, South Korea, is currently sponsoring ten research projects involving more than 20 doctoral-level researchers and over 100 students.
The goal of the center is to develop materials for more energy-efficient CO2 capture, catalysts and processes for converting CO2 into valuable products, novel storage methods, and system-level analyses of major CO2 emitting industries to suggest industry-specific CO2 reduction strategies including energy efficiency improvement.
The center’s work also includes analyzing the impact of potential government or industry-wide policies in the face of uncertainties, some of which are technological and economic as well as political. Besides its research activities, the center has also sponsored seminars and workshops throughout the year to raise awareness of the importance of CO2 management in building a sustainable future.
President Kang said that, from the beginning, the center has prompted researchers and students with different academic backgrounds and skill sets to work together to find integrative and systematic solutions to address real problems of critical importance to the world’s sustainability.
ISCN is a global non-profit association of leading colleges and universities representing over 20 countries, working together to holistically integrate sustainability into campus operations, research, and teaching. As of now, more 75 universities worldwide are the members of ISCN.
The GULF is composed of the presidents of the top 25 universities in the world. The World Economic Forum created it in 2006 to offer a non-competitive platform for high-level dialogue in academia. KAIST is the only Korean GULF member.
For the full report of the 2016 ISCN and GULF conference, go to http://www.international-sustainable-campus-network.org/downloads/general/441-2016-iscn-gulf-best-practice-report/file.
2016.01.25 View 9378