Impact Entrepreneurship Collaboration Hub
As a cooperation project between the Founders Space at HNU and the Haus der Nachhaltigkeit Ulm, Neu-Ulm und Region e.V. (HdN) association, the Impact Entrepreneurship Collaboration Hub (IECH) promotes social innovation and entrepreneurship activities between civil society and HNU members. The project participants reveal here what has already been realised within the framework of the IECH.
Nominated for the Bavarian-Swabian
Innovation Award Transfer 2024 of the Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences
What is the IECH?
The IECH carries research and transfer activities from the HNU into society - and in turn picks up impulses there. Alexander Warth explains: "It's about building bridges, i.e. the active transfer from the university to civil society in order to find new ideas for a better tomorrow for everyone. The way to achieve this is by networking stakeholders, raising awareness among students and society, creating a common place, creative formats for developing solutions and helping with implementation."
The HNU team behind the IECH
The cooperation partner
The IECH's practice partner, the HdN, has its nucleus at the HNU and was supported by the Founders Space. According to the organisation's approach, the necessary transformation will only find its place in society through realistic and realistic sustainable offers on the ground. More than 70 volunteers are therefore working on linking existing good concepts at a local level in order to realise their full potential. The close cooperation between HNU and HdN is characterised by interlinking in various focus groups, including in the areas of science and business, as well as diverse student projects and challenges.
Through the work with various impact founders, but also precisely through the close connection to the HdN, it became clear that there is enormous potential in the cooperation between civil society and students, especially for ideas with social added value. Thanks to the IECH, we now have the opportunity to increasingly address and realise this potential.
Interview with Alexander Warth
[1] How would you describe your project in three key words?
Social innovation, networking, impact
[2] What is special about your project?
Above all, our approach to the topic is characteristic: we tackle the topic directly and practically, ensure permanent internal networking of those involved, organise courses with civil society tasks and ensure direct contact with the association and its extended ecosystem. Another unique selling point is, of course, the realisation of a physical location for impact ideas and the increased exploitation of start-up potential.
[3] What does transfer mean to you?
For us, transfer means meeting at eye level, getting to know the other person, understanding them better and creating something new on this common basis. In our case, actively working towards a better tomorrow!
[4] What do you take away from the project - professionally, but also personally?
Transfer is not a one-way street, it must always be considered in both directions and can only realise its full potential in this way. This requires openness, curiosity and, ideally, a common goal on both sides!
