Enactus World Cup: the Olympic games of sustainable action

Student social entrepreneurship teams from all over the world participate in the Enactus World Cup in Utrecht.

Präsentation des niederländischen Projektteams bei der Eröffnungs-Zeremonie
Presentation of the Dutch project team at the opening ceremony. Photo credit: Michiel Ton

This year, from 17 to 20 October, student teams from all over the world that work on social entrepreneurship projects came together in Utrecht for the Enactus World Cup. All these teams are working to bring about sustainable impact and positive change through the projects they develop, always in line with the 17 Sustainabe Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.

A special highlight of the World Cup was the release of the top 6 ranking of the thematic challenge Action with Africa, which is co-funded by the Wilo-Foundation and the Wilo Group as private sponsors, the main sponsor being the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung, BMZ) represented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The Wilo-Foundation provides funding for the programme; the Wilo Group was again, as last year, a partner of Enactus for the thematic area of “water”, sponsoring the “Wilo Water Excellence Awards”. This year, further Excellence Awards were provided for the first time by BASF, acknowledging projects that aim to fight hunger and improve food security.

Ricarda Marie Pomper (WILO SE, links) und David Höltgen (Wilo-Foundation, rechts) bei der Action-with-Africa Siegerehrung
Ricarda Marie Pomper (WILO SE, left) and David Höltgen (Wilo-Foundation, right) at the Action with Africa award ceremony. Photo credit: Michiel Ton
Die Siegerteams des Themenwettbewerbs „Action with Africa"
The winning teams of the "Action with Africa" theme competition. Photo credit: Michiel Ton

The first prize of the “Action with Africa” challenge, with a monetary prize of 30,000 euros, went to the Egyptian team of the “Modern Academy for Engineering & Technology” and its “BiRi” project. BiRi recycles eggshells to produce calcium chloride, hyaluran and collagen which are in high demand in the food supplement and cosmetics industries. Evi Hoch and David Höltgen (Wilo-Foundation) and Ricarda-Marie Pomper (Wilo SE) congratulated the teams personally and also sat on the international jury that evaluated the projects. All results and the winning teams of the Wilo and BASF awards can be found here.

The main prize of the Enactus World Cup in Utrecht, which this year brought together challengers from 29 countries, again went to an Egyptian team, making this Egypt’s fifth consecutive championship. The breathtaking final, with an audience of 2,000 people, took place at an impressive location, the Beatrix Theatre, and saw the students from Kafr El Sheikh University beat the teams from Canada, Australia and Tunisia. In its project, the Egyptian team leverages concepts of the circular economy by utilizing the black soldier fly to address challenges such as food waste and sharp increases in the cost of fish and animal feed. The four finalists received monetary prizes of 90,000 euros sponsored by Ford Motor Company. This year’s national champion from Germany, Save the Grain of Enactus Cologne, made it into the top 16 with its great presentations. A video of the final and the award ceremony can be found here.

Next year, the World Cup will be held in Kazakhstan (Astana), and will thus take place in Central Asia for the first time.

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