Sustainable Entrepreneurship: HCLA’s Summer School Prepares Participants for Conscious Innovation

With colorful whiteboards, crafts, and unconventional materials, a group of fourteen participants in the “Summer School: Entrepreneurship for Sustainability” explored the crucial role of entrepreneurship in driving innovation to tackle the global sustainability challenges we face as a society. Guided by instructors Johanna Schwarz and Amina Daca—transfer consultant and start-up advisor at hei_INNOVATION, the transfer and innovation agency of Heidelberg University—Vanessa Nowak, Director of Graduate Studies at Universidad Mayor’s Business School and expert coach in entrepreneurship and innovation, and Josefa Ibaceta, engineer with a PhD from Germany and co-founder of the Chilean consultancy ECIT (focused on energy, science, engineering, and technology), the group embarked on the mission of connecting entrepreneurship and sustainability.

Over five days, students from three countries and diverse professional backgrounds developed projects focused on sustainable innovation. Working in teams, they followed every step of the design thinking methodology—empathizing with users to understand their needs, defining the problem, ideating creative solutions, testing, iterating, and improving. The participants presented their projects to experts and entrepreneurs during a visit to Open Beauchef, the innovation and entrepreneurship center at the University of Chile, where they were welcomed by its director, Alejandro Pantoja. At the end of the course, they pitched their projects to the ECIT team, instructors, classmates, and a public audience, receiving valuable feedback.

This experience allowed José Antonio González, one of the participants and founder of Atacama Biomaterials, to “deepen his knowledge of entrepreneurship methodologies, design thinking, and sustainable business models,” while also “building connections with like-minded people at both national and international levels. The teaching method was incredibly innovative, dynamic, and fun.”

Held for the second time, this course is part of the Continuing Education Program (ABeLL in German) of the HCLA. Both Heidelberg University and the Heidelberg Center for Latin America maintain a strong commitment to innovation, sustainability, and entrepreneurship, reflected in their partnerships and programs—such as the Master’s in Risk and Resource Governance offered in Santiago, Chile. During the summer school’s closing session, Dr. Johanna Schwarz proudly noted that “many of the best ideas are developed in interdisciplinary teams like the ones we had here. That’s what the collaboration between Chile and Germany is all about, which has already shown great success in the field of renewable energies—and there’s still so much more potential.”