MDH students won first prize in an international competition

In 2017, for the sixth consecutive year, students from Mälardalen University (MDH) won first prizes in Euroweek, an international conference, which this year had representatives from 17 countries.

Prime Networking is a network of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Europe, which includes MDH, and the Euroweek conference is one of the network’s biggest activities. This year the conference was arranged at Politécnico de Coimbra in Portugal.

The students in the participating HEIs are required to develop projects directed towards particular issues within the theme of the conference. This is carried out in small groups of six students from three HEIs under the leadership of their teachers. During the week the students can compete and win three different prices: “best project paper”, “best project stand” and “best project presentation”.

All written project reports are assessed by an independent jury of academics at the arranging HEI and one winner is appointed. Best project stand is assessed by all present academics from all countries, where they vote for the project who manages best to sell their project idea at an exhibition. For best project presentation three projects can win since the competing projects are divided into three different jury “tracks”. A jury consisting of academics from five different HEIs assesses each project, taking into account its academic content, presentation ability and the interactive discussion. This year 16 projects participated.

MDH won two first prizes

This year’s conference theme was “Creativity and Entrepreneurship: from Social to HighTech”. MDH participated with two different projects and for the sixth consecutive year, the representatives of MDH managed to win three different prizes! This year it was two first prizes and one third prize! Two of them, for best project paper and best project presentation (jury track 2), was announced to the project, ”Innovation and Creativity at the Bottom of the Pyramid” and it was Amanda Lundh (IMF-program) and Erik Lehikoinen (IBM-program) who could bring home the winning trophy. The project also had students and academics from Belgium (ECAM School of Engineering) and Norway (University College of South East Norway).
– The entire process of Euroweek was very rewarding! Overall, I’m very glad that I joined Euroweek, since I was able to make business connections, skills and friends that will help me to reach my personal goals, says Erik Lehikoinen.

Amada is also pleased with the experience.
– The theme of this year's Euroweek was inspiring and eye-opening as social aspects in many respects were replaced by technical features, it is a very relevant topic today. I have never learned so much in so many different areas in such short a time as before and during Euroweek, it is hard to describe this project with words but I'm incredibly glad I got to participate!, says Amanda Lundh.

The second project: ” David against Goliath - How creative communication helps small advertising agencies survive in a market led by giant agencie”, came third in best project paper. The best papers will be sent to a journal for publishing. The project was a cooperation between students and teachers from Portugal, Sweden and Spain. From Sweden Sofia Hagström (IMF-program) and Jenny-Maria Åström (International Marketing) participated.

– Euroweek was tough but very rewarding in several aspects. By working on such a project, we learned to communicate, collaborate and develop across borders with only online tools as a base. We managed, by frequent meetings and good communication, to build a strong team that, to me, was the biggest profit throughout the project. Getting to know people from different cultures while developing personal and professional qualities was a very valuable experience that I will take with me in my future projects, both privately and professionally, says Sofia Hagström.

Satisfied supervisors

Charlotta Edlund and Angelina Sundström, supervisors for the projects, are of course very happy and satisfied.

– The students have had an amazing dedication and commitment and have put a lot of energy into the projects from day one. The first goal as a project leader is to create and encourage the team from day 1. The students in our two projects managed to build a fantastic team spirit from the first Skype meeting in December, which could clearly be seen in the results and during the week in Portugal where it was clear they had an amazing team spirit, says Charlotta Edlund.

She continues:

– Our partners in Belgium (Jean Lecocq), Norway (Aase Haukaas Gjerde), Portugal (Alexandra Leandro) and Spain (Angels Xabadia) are fantastic and have been engaged in the project from day one.