WHAT IS GESS?
The Global Entrepreneurship Summer School (GESS) is a seven-day program where 140 university students come together in Munich, Mexico City, Shanghai and Cape Town to develop entrepreneurial solutions that meet the world’s biggest challenges. In the spirit of promoting “billion-dollar projects to foster societal change”, we work on the UN Sustainable Development Goals aiming to empower students to become young responsible leaders who create positive change in our society.
The Global Entrepreneurship Summer School (GESS) is a program of the Social Entrepreneurship Akademie based in Munich, Germany, organized in cooperation with six leading university-based entrepreneurship centers in Munich, Shanghai, Mexico City and Cape Town.
Since 2008 their Summer School program was known as EIISS (Entrepreneurial Impact International Summer School), in the 5th year of existence it was rebranded to Global Entrepreneurship Summer School. The Global Entrepreneurship Summer School is part of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). The goals of the Decade are to provide opportunities for refining and promoting the vision of and transition to sustainable development through all forms of education. The Global Entrepreneurship Summer School fosters the important role of education in sustainable development and connects ambitious, entrepreneurial students from all over the world.
In 2018 for the first time, GESS has taken place on four continents in four different cities. Mexico City, Cape Town, Shanghai and Munich hosted this year's edition about consumption. Sustainable consumption and production are some of the major challenges of our time. Entrepreneurial solutions from innovative, creative and enthusiastic students like you are needed to solve the issues surrounding the challenges of consumerism in a rapidly growing society. During the course of one week, students from all over the world worked on the following topics:
#Environment; #Culture; #Production; #Global Food Consumption and #Waste.
GESS CAPE TOWN
Ou host in CapeTown was LifeCo UnLtd, which is a social enterprise, established over 2 decades ago during the times of segregation and marginalisation in South Africa. The enterprise focuses on 2 key elements: entrepreneurial education for youth, and entrepreneur development. It finds, funds and invests in emerging social entrepreneurs to expand their impact and access to market.
It facilitates programs focused on critical thinking, capital and entrepreneurial practice to schools and universities and is an active advocate for social impact – the organization is strategically placed to guide policy direction in South Africa and is a global influencer in the sector.LifeCo UnLtd is also a global advocate for impact enterprise and impact investment and a founding member of the Global Social Entrepreneurship Network (GSEN). The partnership with LifeCo bundles and introduces eight South African Universities to the GESS initiative – significantly increasing GESS’s University presence. This year, GESS Cape Town was located at the University of the Western Cape.
We were about 35 students from 10 different countries. My group had people from China, Switzerland, Germany and South Africa - It was quite nice to have the chance to learn so much from different points of view.
MY TEAM AND OUR PROJECT
“Seed for Change” is trying to shift short term thinking in South Africa by working with school children and giving them a stevia plant to grow. The plant can be harvested continuously and is also a healthier option to sugar. The children learn patience and long term thinking by harvesting at particular times, and particular amounts, in order to keep the plant growing and producing.
The accompanying teaching app helps teacher see the process through by guiding harvesting time and incorporating little tutorials on long term thinking.
The tendency to consume quantity over quality will be subverted by realizing just a little stevia has a lot of sweetness. And a little bit of patience has a big long term reward.
I recommend GESS for whosoever wants to improve their worldwide network and develop some very necessary skills for entrepreneuship. Our lovaly staff helped us to focus on our self discovery too, I learned a lot about myself in this program.
