A global student race to cut carbon

The Challenge

The consortium set out to channel young talent against climate change: inviting students worldwide to propose ways to cut industry's footprint, while giving sponsors direct access to fresh thinking, talent and new venture opportunities.

What we did

Working with the consortium, Nosco designed the submission and judging process, with a panel assessing each idea against three questions: does it solve a real problem, how much could it cut environmental footprint, and is it a viable business? Nosco created a dedicated brand for the challenge and worked alongside the consortium on communication and promotion to drive submissions. Nosco's platform helped authors form teams of three to five from different backgrounds, and together with the consortium, Nosco facilitated the selection process that invited the top five to a final workshop in Switzerland. There, Nosco and the consortium ran the maturation workshop together, helping teams develop their ideas further before pitching to the sponsoring companies. Winning students received coaching from industry experts and top universities, joined a wider community of fellow entrepreneurs, and shared a prize of €8,750.

Results

Nearly 150 teams from around the world took part, with five reaching the finals. Team Fresh Tag took the title with a freshness indicator designed to cut food waste, alongside finalists like Coir Wood (turning coconut waste into an MDF alternative) and pv2 (desalinating seawater while generating power for remote islands).

Beyond the ideas themselves, students walked away with new skills in entrepreneurship, teamwork, and pitching to industry. For the consortium, the challenge opened a direct line to fresh talent and new thinking — one that paid off further when several participating companies went on to hire students they'd met through the program.