A team of Birmingham Business School Students were announced as winners at the annual One Planet Sustainability Challenge. The Challenge involved international teams developing a practical solution to a sustainability problem that was given by Blue Ventures; a charity that develops life-changing approaches for improving marine conservation.
A team of Birmingham Business School Students were announced as winners at the annual One Planet Sustainability Challenge. The Challenge involved international teams developing a practical solution to a sustainability problem that was given by Blue Ventures; a charity that develops life-changing approaches for improving marine conservation.
Birmingham Business School’s ‘Team Novo’ was formed of three MSc students, Zeina Abu-Hamdan, MSc Marketing Communications, Neena Thomas, MSc Marketing Communications and April (Ya Sin) Cheung, MSc Strategic Marketing and Consultancy.
The Brief:
“We were required to strengthen the sustainability and scalability of Blue Ventures’ community health working venture in Madagascar, in order to retain their community of health workers, specifically women, and allow them to be more engaged in their communities through a business that creates value for them and allows them to generate revenues.”
Team Novo developed a business model that created economic and societal shared value that would aid sustainable solutions for poverty affected communities. The model was achieved by using business planning techniques and design thinking, which was presented to a panel of judges made up of academics and practitioners. After reaching the final on the second day Team Novo were announced as the winners, beating teams from the UK, France and the Netherlands to the title.
The challenge was a wonderful experience. At times it was very tough as we had to work to a strict time frame, but we have learnt a lot about innovative business solutions making a positive change. We received great support from our lectures and now our beautiful awards are proudly placed in the cabinet of Birmingham Business School. Zeina Abu-Hamdan, team member
About the One Planet Sustainability Challenge:
The One Planet MBA at the University of Exeter annually invites Master’s students to join The One Planet Sustainability Challenge.
About Blue Ventures:
Blue Ventures develops transformative approaches for catalysing and sustaining locally led marine conservation. We work in places where the ocean is vital to local cultures and economies, and are committed to protecting marine biodiversity in ways that benefit coastal people.
