CIRCULAR ECONOMY CHALLENGE

IDEAS TO CHANGE THE WORLD

An initiative by the VUB Chair of Social Entrepreneurship and its founding partners, BNP Paribas Fortis, Close the Gap and Euroclear, in cooperation with the VBO-FEB VUB-ULB Chair of Circular Economy.

Design Thinking Bootcamp

With the Circular Economy Challenge, we attracted 16 wonderful ideas with great potential to resolve several sustainability issues of our planet. After individual meetings at VUB, we had a great design thinking Bootcamp at DigitYser provided by Euroclear on 4 and 5 March 2020:

At the Bootcamp, in addition to the owners of these 16 ideas, we had participants from Euroclear, BNP Paribas Fortis, Close the Gap, VUB, and key-note speakers from Enactus and Zero Gaspi. The design thinking Bootcamp, led by Maria Garcia Salmones and team, created a dynamic for 48 participants. It was a great experience in support of these 16 ideas, but it also led to new ones. Meet Maria, the amazing design thinking coach:

We were looking forward to hosting the final event on 2 April 2020. Unfortunately, we were forced to cancel this final face-to-face event due to COVID-19. Despite the horrible impact of the corona crisis, business models for the circular economy are needed more than ever, and we notice in these hard times that there is no lock-down possible for the creativity of people.

As we love to support our challengers with what we can, the partners of the Circular Economy Challenge decided that the final event had to take place virtually. Therefore, the ideas of the challenge were posted on this website on 4 May 2020 so that people could vote for the ideas till 10 May 2020. In such way, the Challengers received feedback, ideas, contacts, or resources from external stakeholders. We spread the word throughout our social media and supported those ideas that will change the world for its sustainable future. Meet the challengers by clicking here.

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Want to know more about the Grand Finale results and who won the CEC 2020? Click here.