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Sustainability Start-Up Seminar
Last Updated: 2026-06-03 00:14:30
Abstract
Participants are lead through a venturing process inspired by Lean and Design Thinking and social innovation methodologies. The course contains problem identification, idea generation and evaluation, team formation, and the development of one entrepreneurial idea per team. Starting points for entrepreneurial ideas are the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
Objective
Students are able to: 1. apply their experience from the course in order to take the first steps towards co-creating a venture and potentially company 2. critically analyze sustainability issues (with a focus on climate change & biodiversity) and develop a well-defined problem statement 3. confidently apply their ideas and expertise to contribute to positive change in the world together with others. 4. apply entrepreneurial practices such as e.g. the lean startup approach, effectuation theory 5. build an initial professional network and identify the appropriate steps and contacts to advance their ventures.
Content
This course is aimed at people with a keen interest to address sustainability issues (with a focus on climate crisis and biodiversity loss) in collaborative and co-creative ways, with a curious mindset, and willingness to explore entrepreneurial thinking and action! The seminar consists of a mix of lectures, workshops, individual working sessions, teamwork, and student presentations/pitches. This class is taught by a reflective practitioner of entrepreneurial action for societal transformation. Real-world climate entrepreneurs and experts from the Swiss start-up and sustainability community will be invited to support individual sessions. All course content is based on latest international entrepreneurship practices and contains continuous processes of self- and world making. The seminar starts with an introduction to sustainability (with a special focus on climate change & biodiversity), social innovation and entrepreneurship. Students are asked to self-select into an area of their interest in which they will develop entrepreneurial ideas throughout the course. The first part of the course then focuses on deeply understanding sustainability problems within the area of interest. Through workshops and self-study, students will identify key design challenges, generate ideas, as well as provide systematic and constructive feedback to their peers. In the second part of the course, students will form teams around their generated ideas. In these teams they will develop a business model and, following the lean start-up process, conduct real-life testing, as well as pivoting of these business models. In the final part of the course, students present their insights gained from the lean start-up process, as well as pitch their entrepreneurial ideas and business models to an expert jury. The course will conclude with a session that provides students with a network and resources to further pursue their entrepreneurial journey.
Resources
Lecture Notes
All material used will be made available to the participants via moodle.
Literature
No pre-reading required.
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- BSC , MSC
- Frequency
- Yearly recurring
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| lecture with exercise |
Sustainability Start-Up Seminar
Irregular lecture
|
|
24 h semesterly |