The project seminars of the Chair of Digital Innovation and the Public Sector, which deal with current and relevant challenges, were recently launched. In the project seminars, students have the opportunity to put the knowledge they have acquired during their studies into practice and develop innovative solutions based on real problems.

After a brief phase of theoretical introduction to the topic, this week marked the beginning of the project phase for students in the Bachelor Project Seminar "Sustainability + Data: Calculation of a university-specific Resource Overshoot Day for the University of Münster." The background of the seminar lies in a time when natural resources are becoming increasingly scarce, emphasizing the importance of considering how we can conserve them. The Earth Overshoot Day signifies the point in the year when humanity has consumed more natural resources than the Earth can regenerate in a year.
The students received input from the University's Sustainability Office, represented by Nico Schäfer, and generated initial ideas for the data-driven prototype that will answer the question at the end of the semester: "When would Earth Overshoot Day be if everyone operated as the University of Münster does?" The goal of this seminar is to develop a shared understanding of sustainable resource consumption and a data-driven, informed approach to addressing and positively managing it.

The students of the project seminar "Digital Innovation for Sustainable Development“ held their first interview with the company ClimateFarmers this week, and started to delve deep into the interdisciplinary topic of agri-tech.
After an initial phase of theoretical knowledge development, the students are now in the project phase, in which they will develop teaching cases in correspondence to one of the United Nations sustainability goals. This semester, the case ClimateFarmers relates to the goals 12 "Responsible Production and Consumption" and 15 "Life on Land". The seminar is part of the funded "INNO4S" project, aiming to embed the themes of sustainability, digitization and innovation in business economics and information systems curricula.

The project phase is now also beginning for the students of the project seminar "Development of a coordination app for open all-day care at Altenberge elementary school", following their visit to Altenberge town hall for a kick-off event.
The focus of this seminar is the upcoming construction of a new elementary school in Altenberge. The school covers an area of around 15,000 square meters, about one and a half soccer pitches, and offers special facilities for the open all-day school. The aim of this seminar is for the students to develop software to digitally supervise more than 400 children at the new open all-day school in Altenberge. In addition to supervision, the software is intended to support the teaching staff in additional areas such as health and safety aspects of the children.