The fairy tale
The conference on Sustainable Innovation 2020 at ESCP Berlin took place from the 8th to the 10th of January. oikos Berlin has participated actively in the organization and invited the oikos community to the event.
On the first day, 6 guests from different sectors expressed how their organizations are tackling the issue of sustainability, focusing on partnerships to lead business transformation. The conference was an excellent occasion to bring together people from business, academia and civil society organizations. The participants were actively sending questions to the speakers trough an app.
Clémentine Robert, current President of oikos International, gave a speech on how youth student activism is having a long term effect on business and society transformation. She emphasized the importance of business students to lead business change by external and internal leverage, at the local level: “Business transformation starts right here, right now”. Clémentine’s speech as well as those of most guests are featured in a video of the first day talks which you can find here.
The last activity of the conference aimed to set the path for the next two days: taking action. Therefore the participants were asked to write down on a post-it which sustainable action they wanted to accomplish in 2020.
For the oikos community, notably for oikos Berlin, oikos Copenhagen, oikos Bayreuth and oikos International, it was a great occasion to meet each other, boost the team’s energy and develop further cooperation. And of course, a bunch of them came by bus or train, either from Switzerland and from Copenhagen. As Clémentine said, “walk the talk”.
The second day was devoted to the workshops.
oikos animated a workshop on curriculum change, with members of oikos Berlin as moderators and J.Christopher from oikos International as an expert.
Even though, at first, the workshop may seemed less appealing compared to others, it ended up being one of the most dynamics, with students committing to lead curriculum change within ESCP Europe.
Finally, on the last day the students were given the opportunity to present the ideas they have developed during their workshops.
In the end, a career fair gave to the students the opportunity to envisage a career linked to sustainability; curriculum change goes beyond sustainability simply within courses, it gives students the means to develop the critical mindset needed to make conscious decisions.
Once more, we would like to thank oikos Berlin for bringing us together!
