Students, employees and external parties worked together to develop ideas for transforming the ZHAW into a leading entrepreneurial university.

Where at the university can like-minded people with innovative ideas get together and share their ideas? What does the ZHAW have to offer when it comes to entrepreneurship? And how can potential entrepreneurs best navigate the bureaucracy of establishing a business? These were some of the key questions tackled by various teams at the university’s first-ever Innovation Challenge. As an entrepreneurial university, the ZHAW intends to become a place where people who think and act like entrepreneurs meet and grow in the face of challenges. This open innovation process launched by the “ZHAW entrepreneurship” strategic initiative focuses on developing innovative projects, from the team building and brainstorming phase right through to implementation. “We unite people who are interested in helping to shape the future and allow them to collaboratively develop solutions that are innovative and that we may not even have thought of yet,” says Anita Buchli, Director ZHAW entrepreneurship.

At the start of the challenge, the participants had to form teams, then develop ideas together and convince each other of their concepts. The participants met regularly at deep dive events, were accompanied by experienced growth coaches and inspired by input presentations given by successful entrepreneurs. The challenge culminated in a final Pitching Festival at the end of the year. Six teams presented their results for promoting entrepreneurial mindset at the ZHAW – from a meeting place without interdisciplinary boundaries to a central contact point for all innovations and a market maturity test for entrepreneurial ideas. The teams had to face the criticism of a jury and convince them of the added value generated for the university and the feasibility of their idea. The teams will now implement their innovative projects in 2024 and test them in the real world – and thus help shape the ZHAW on its way to becoming a leading entrepreneurial university.