At the start of the new academic year HP and JA-YE Europe launched a new educational Facebook application – The HP Responsible Business Challenge – to encourage even more students around the world to take social and environmental responsibility into consideration as they enter professional life.
Through the application students up to the age of 25 were challenged to submit business ideas for the Year 2020 that could have a positive effect on the general public and the world around them. Ideas were open to public voting and people were able to comment on each others ideas. With ideas being submitted from as far afield as Sri Lanka, Romania, United States and Kenya the Challenge had a wide global reach.
All the ideas were judged by a panel of volunteers from HP who scored the innovations and awarded points for environmental benefit, social benefit, innovation & creativity and feasibility & potential. The three top ideas were announced this week:-
Iulia Ghiţescu, Bucharest, Romania Idea for a responsible business in 2020: Using GPS in mobile phones to enable people to more easily live an eco-friendly life. By simply installing Iulia’s application people would be able to work out the most environmentally friendly route between places, track down local recycling facilities and locate bio food and product retailers. To view Iulia’s idea click here.
Vallabh Rao, Bangalore, India Idea for a responsible business in 2020: to connect people from all over the world with a virtual workspace that they can access from their phones which will be more advanced than the high end computers we see today. The concept would use an augmented reality 3D virtual screen which helps people interact with colleagues easily with out having to travel. Apart from an increase in productivity, Vallabh also thinks the idea would help companies save money and reduce the impact of traveling. To view Vallabh’s idea click here.
Leah Osterhoudt, Waterloo, ON, Canada Idea for a responsible business in 2020: ‘Clean Business’ – a concept that envelops all stages of business from raw materials right through to the final product and encourages entrepreneurs to think holistically about how they can positively impact their suppliers, workforce and the environment. To view Leahs idea click here.
Each winner will receive an HP Mini Notebook.
The HP Responsible Business Challenge is part of the Responsible Business Competition, a flagship programme of HP and JA-YE Europe, JA Latin America and JA U.S. The competition encourages students in JA-YE and JA entrepreneurship education programmes to consider social and environmental responsibility. Read more about the HP Responsible Business Competition