Students from the Faculty of Engineering participated in the Week for Social Entrepreneurship "Design the Future" at the Universidade do Vale do Rio do Sinos, Brazil

The program included ten multidisciplinary groups of 45 Brazilian, 16 Germans and 5 Chilean students assigned with local challenges.

In Sao Leopoldo, Brazil, a group of five students from our faculty participated in the Week for Social Entrepreneurship Design the Future, program organized by the Universidade do Vale do Rio do Sinos-UNISINOS together with the University of Applied Sciences FH Münster, and where two USACH students were awarded first and third place, respectively.

Sao Leopoldo is a small city located 32 kms. away from Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul state. This is the city where UNISINOS is located and where the program was held from November 11 to 14, 2020.

Matías Uribe, Chemical Civil Engineering student, Pamela Sanhueza and Herman Kohl, from Industrial Civil Engineering, and Nicole Martín and Bárbara Sarmiento from the Informatics Engineering program were welcomed by the coordination team and had the opportunity to tour some important attractions of the city ending with a first approach to the gaucha culture in a restaurant.

During the week, Brazilian, Germans and Chileans were divided in ten different teams, each with one challenge assigned related to local issues about education, transportation, environment, pollution, and, of course, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Pamela Sanhueza, fifth-year Industrial Engineering student, worked on how to increase the use of renewable energy in the community, taking into account the behavior of people and organizations. In turn, Bárbara Sarmiento, Informatics Engineering student, had to deal with the challenge of how to increase the number of 14 to 20-year-old people who speak a second language. The solution of this problem led Bárbara and her team to obtain the first place.

For USACH students, the multidisciplinary profile of each team helped them to boost their problems-solving skills and have an open-minded perspective in order to consider different points of view at the time of taking decisions. However, it was not easy to reach this point since the official language in the program was English and the strong formal training of the students in each discipline.

"As we tried to solve the problem with real life solutions, our German colleagues looked into the challenge from a marketing perspective, so, our points of view were quite different from the other. This discussion ended up with a particular result; however, we learned how to understand and adapt to different ways of working within a team", affirms Herman Khol, second-year Industrial Civil Engineering student.

On the other hand, Bárbara says "working with multidisciplinary groups was very interesting, because you have to look for the best way to explain something to someone with a different background, so this is not easy. In addition, trying to stand out in this context as a woman and a student is another difficulty to deal with, because you have to convince others that your argument is valid, functional, and can be created and developed".

The Faculty of Engineering congratulates the student winners of this international program who represent the spirit of progress and innovation and entrepreneurship for the faculty.

This initiative is part of the two strategical areas of the Ingeniería 2030 project, represented by the International Relations Unit of the faculty; on one side, strengthening outreach and social affairs in and out the university; and, on the other side, boosting international student and academic mobility.

Written by: Catalina Águila

Translated by: Javiera Díaz