Photo: Kaare Smith

Students compete on sustainable solutions

Innovation and product development
The autumn’s innovation competition Oi-X focuses on innovative solutions which, among other things, can help Danes becoming more sustainable.

When 100 students meet at DTU Skylab for this autumn’s Open Innovation X-competition at the end of October, the work will be interdisciplinary and innovative. Here, they will compete within four innovation challenges which will lead to solutions related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals: namely sustainable water, energy, food, and cities.

This is the first time that the theme is the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals at a Oi-X competition.

“One of the interesting things about the Oi-X-competition is that we will be working with current and relevant challenges in Denmark where we have a major responsibility for achieving these goals, as our consumption and living standards impact the world considerably and negatively,” says Marie Louise Møllebæk Pollmann-Larsen, Project Manager at DTU Skylab.

“The students are very enthusiastic about the theme. I think it’s because they see that their academic skills can be used in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals, and that they want to make a difference by creating a sustainable future and want to work with companies with similar mindsets.”

Boosting talent development
Oi-X has existed since 2015 and is about students from DTU and other institutions of higher education in cooperation with companies, government agencies, and organisations generating new and innovative solutions in an intensive three-day course. The students can develop anything from digital solutions to technical products and strategies that can help streamline the company’s production. The ambition is, among other things, that the innovation collaboration will boost the Danish talent development and the companies’ growth opportunities.

In previous Oi-X competitions, the students have, among other things, developed new technology for Oticon for reading facial expressions, which can be connected to an existing hearing aid. Another group of students has developed a data-driven model for optimizing future beer sales for the company Royal Unibrew, and this spring, the winning team developed a high-tech ‘band-aid’, that measures people with Parkinson’s disease’s movement patterns.

“Oi-X can be an informal weekend that inspires, create networks for researchers and companies, and enables students to solve a problem within in a short time. In the long run, the competition may result in the students continuing their collaboration with government agencies and companies—or deciding to proceed with the idea of being entrepreneurs with the help of DTU Skylab,” says Marie Louise Møllebæk Pollmann-Larsen.

The competition is open to students from all study programmes. You sign up via the link below on first-come, first-served basis. There are only 100 seats. The winner will be announced at the final on 7 November.

When: 26-28 October 2018
Location: DTU Skylab

Registration