The students on the third Challenge Based Innovation (CBI) @CERN course have been working on their society-oriented projects since September. Last Thursday, 10 December, they finally presented all their proofs-of-concept and prototypes to a packed audience at IdeaSquare.

Twenty-seven students from four universities and over ten countries have been working on the CERN CBI course since last September. Labour mobility, food safety, literacy and water safety are the four projects that the students have been working on.

Thanks to help and inspiration from a wide range of people working at CERN, especially in the Knowledge Transfer group, the students have redefined and focused their original challenges and have developed four concepts to solve societal challenges:

* Team Bohr developed a concept for encouraging labour mobility and talent exchange in Europe, combining data analysis and existing online platforms.

* Team Kelvin was looking into improving food safety and developed new tools for the home delivery of food.

* Team Penrose was engaging communities for co-created learning experiences and solving community issues.

* Team Planck improved access to potable drinking water by improving access to existing solutions.

The students’ final presentations and prototype expo filled IdeaSquare last Thursday; the recorded presentations and more info about the project results will be soon updated on the course website.

The next Challenge Based Innovation course will start in February and will be organised in collaboration with schools from Turin. You can find information about other upcoming projects and events at IdeaSquare at http://cern.ch/ideasquare. The IdeaSquare and CBI organisers are also always looking for advisors and mentors for the project teams. Do you want to share your knowledge? Please contact tuuli.utriainen@cern.ch or joona.kurikka@cern.ch.