• 1400 students from 24 colleges and universities throughout the Netherlands worked on 23 different assignments from different sustainable entrepreneurs and companies;
• Over 500 students followed a workshop about sustainable entrepreneurship;
• Almost 200 students participated in a debate about sustainable entrepreneurship;
• Global Minded was mentioned in an article in national newspaper NRC Next;
• Students, entrepreneurs and teachers experienced Global Minded as inspriring, instructive, fun and motivating in the sense that sustainability can create business.

This year Enviu succeeds with a new project for students: Brains X Change!
In this project we connect the brains of Dutch students to those of South African students in a competition to solve issues in the townships of Cape Town. Do you want to know more about this project and win a trip to Cape Town!? Go to the website www.brainsxchange.org now!!

At the Hogeschool Rotterdam a group of students, from the minor Citybranding, have worked on a project about ecotourism in India, commissioned by SCF (Society for Conservation of Forests) and intermediary Enviu.

SCF India (Saving & Conserving Forests in India) focuses at nature, the environment and the people living in and around Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Central India. Through education, SCF’s goal is to make the local people aware of the importance of nature in their surroundings. The lives of the tigers are closely connected to the human inhabitance of the area; therefore, it is essential that the local people support the measures for the protection of the tigers. This may only be accomplished by protecting the entire national park. (Source www.scfindia.com)

As an alternative income source SCF wants to create an ecotourism system in cooperation with the local people.

The assignment for the students was to create a marketing- and promotion plan for Dutch tourists to go on an ecoholiday in the region of Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Central India.
They had to show which steps had to be taken to developed touristic activities and how to sell the ecoholiday on the Dutch market.

We will give you an impression of the end presentations on Monday January 25th.

But first, what is Ecotourism? Ecotourism is about travelling with respect for nature, culture and human rights, with no interruption in the life of  the local people. Ecotourists travel to natural areas and try to conserve the local environment and show respect to the local people and culture.

Why Ecotourism? It’s important that ecotourism gets a bigger role within tourism, because if it doesn’t, it will cause radical consequences in the future for local nature and people. There has to be more awareness of the consumer that this kind of tourism is also a possibility, SCF India wants to achieve this trough marketing. And that is why SCF India asked the student of the Hogeschool Rotterdam to make a market strategy to conquer or create the sustainable holiday market.

The class was divided in five groups of five students and every group had prepared a presentation. Some groups had chosen a very creative way present their marketing plans. Others chose the more conventional way. But all of the speakers sounded like they have had their fair share of presenting.

The jury, formed of Claudia Vijge of SCF India, Robin Maat of Maatstaf Young Professionals and Francoise of Enviu, chose the best two out of five. We will describe those two.

Ecomission

Ecomission had a very strong presentation. Their main marketing strategy is the use of the internet. They want to link their TATR-vacation site to specific sites that involve information about ecotourism and they want to join homepages like Google.
Other ways to give TATR make a bigger name is to be a special in magazines like Asia and Travelution. Their last way of advertising is to sew labels in clothes and bags from TREET (the label from SCF India) and write information about TATR on the labels.
The trips that SCF India for TATR organize should have the following core themes; authenticity, nature, silence and luxury. People that want to book a vacation here, want to make a difference in the area. Ecomission advises SCF India to contact existing volunteer organizations and let them help to get volunteer projects going. It will save a lot of time and effort and the TATR-vacations can use the name of that particular volunteer organization, because they are already known and experienced.
Ecomission won one of the two first prizes, because they had an outstanding presentation and paper. It covered all the problems that they had to resolve. This first prize was a t-shirt from the label TREET, which was given by Claudia Vijge of SCF India.

Animal Life

Animal life had as biggest marketing idea two sorts of vacations that a tourist can book. One of the two was a medium organized vacation. The vacation is set to be 13 days long and the person that books this kind of vacation is assured to see a lot of nature, culture, wild life, and will have the opportunity to interact with the locals.
The other sort of vacation is called ‘Free as a bird.’  The starting point is the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve and from there on tourist can tell their local guide what they would like to see in the area.
Animal life won the second of the two first prizes because their paper had a very high quality and could immediately be used by SCF India. This first prize was a certificate from Global Minded, which was given by Francoise of Enviu.

Making sustainable entrepreneurship happen

Are you curious how sustainable entrepreneurship can contribute to a cleaner and better world? Join this workshop! Enviu will tell about the challenges, the pro’’s and con’’s of sustainable entrepreneurship and illustrate this by the success story of the Hybrid Tuktuk project of Enviu. See www.hybridtuktuk.com

14th of November 2009
13.00-14.00 hours
Room is coming soon

Build your career by volunteering

In this workshop you learn about the advantages of being a volunteer. Several volunteers for Enviu tell you about their experiences and how these can meet your ambitions and contribute to your career. Are you curious how you can expand your  network, get relevant working exerience and get skills in the field you like, join this workshop!
For examples of Enviu projects that were made possible by the help of volunteers, check www.sustainabledanceclub.com and www.enviu.org

13th of November 2009
15.45-16.45 hours
Room is coming soon

14th of November 2009
15.30-16.30 hours
Room is coming soon

Hope to see you at the Nationale Carriere Beurs on the 13th and 14th of November in the Amsterdam RAI!

The assignments are available in Dutch as well as English. The number of ECTS students will be able to receive for these assignments will vary from 1 to 5 depending on the number of questions the students answer.

donderdag 02 juli 2009

Studenten Management, Economie en Recht uit Den Bosch hielden afgelopen week een wel heel aparte presentatie. Die werd via Skype met beeld en geluid gevolgd door een hoteleigenaar op Costa Rica.Alle tweedejaarsstudenten werden in groepen verdeeld en kregen een opdracht van een buitenlands bedrijf. Het project is medegeorganiseerd door Global Minded, een interactief platform dat werkt aan duurzaamheidsvraagstukken.

Zo onderzocht een groep de mogelijkheden voor een eco-neutraal hotel op Costa Rica. De eigenaar van dat hotel, Phons van der Boom, zoekt naar manieren om zijn duurzame bedrijf te promoten. Via Skype was hij medebeoordelaar van de presentaties van de studenten.

Ecotoerisme

Zo had het projectgroepje van Marloes Tops de behoefte naar ecologische bedrijfsreizen naar Costa Rica onderzocht. ‘Ecotoerisme komt het meest voor in Amerika en Engeland. De Imagevraag ernaar groeit en dit zijn de belangrijkste afzetmarkten’, verduidelijkte Tops. ‘Amerika ligt ook dichtbij Costa Rica, dus van daaruit is het goedkoper reizen.’

Costa Rica telt vijfhonderd hotels, waarvan er tachtig duurzaam zijn. Tops: ‘Dat land moet het lokmiddel zijn voor mensen en bedrijven die meer willen betalen voor het milieu.’ En passant hadden ze een idee voor een duurzame fitnessruimte in het hotel. ‘Door trillingen van de loopbanden kan energie worden opgewekt.’

Krabben voor geld

Een andere groep bedacht een fondsenwervingsactie voor een project van South Sea Exclusive Foundation op de Filippijnen. De uitdaging was met een minimaal budget maximale winst te genereren. Kyra Hoevenaars van de stichting koos het plan uit van student Wessel Tax en zijn groep als beste idee.

De studenten gaven Hoevenaars een boekje met een krabbetje erop. Het idee is ‘krabben voor het goede doel’. Als een soort kraslot krabt iemand een vakje open, daaronder staat het bedrag dat die persoon doneert aan het goede doel. Meer vakjes openkrabben mag natuurlijk altijd. Ook krijgt de donateur een kortingsbon van een sponsor.

Schattig boekje

‘Het is relatief goedkoop en snel uit te voeren. Precies waar we naar op zoek waren’, looft Hoevenaars de winnaars. ‘Wellicht gaan we dit nog eens uitvoeren. Het is een schattig boekje en ik geloof erin. Alleen jammer dat ze niet gekeken hebben naar het gebruik van recyclebaar papier.’ [Eric van Gennip]

For Verbos the students had to analyse several countries and decide which was the most feasable to produce “Stevia”. Stevia is a natural sweetener that could be about to take over the current market! Petra van der Hout was very pleased with the results and offered the students a possible intern position or maybe even more! Thank you for that Petra!

For Fairground Sessions the students looked at new ways to collect money for the Buddytrips that Fairground Session organises. They had to present their financial plans and feasability plans. Niels asked critical questions but was also surprised by new insights that the students gave him.

On the 19th of June Global minded co-organised a jury meeting in Alkmaar with INHolland.  This group of students led by the inspiring teacher Marlies presented their export plans  in teams. The companies they were representing included Tjebok, Oikokredit and Cordaid. These professional presentatins were judged by a  jury consisting of two member of the Global Minded team Francoise and Kate and Kyra  who is a young professional working at the http://www2.thecolourkitchen.com/.  A prize was also awarded to the public’’s favourite which coincidentally matched the jury’’s winner!

For photo’’s of the event check our site http://picasaweb.google.com/enviuglobalminded

Thank you all for your great contributions  and we wish you all a great summer holiday!

Hope to see you at Pannekoekstraat 100 in Rotterdam

Four groups of students presented their advice to a jury consisted out of Global Minded people, experienced international business teachers and ofcourse the owners of Evening Breeze Yoeri Nagtegaal and Thomas van den Groenendaal.

Pictures will follow soon of this great meeting check http://picasaweb.google.com/enviuglobalminded

Evening Breeze has recently been featured on www.springwise.com a leading site on innovation and great entrpreneurial ideas, check their article at www.springwise.com