COLOURS WEEK IN PADERBORN

Universität Paderborn, the leader of the COLOURS European University Alliance, hosted two events attended by representatives of JDU Bartłomiej Kowalik (chief specialist in charge of the Department for International Cooperation), Zofia Piwowarska (second-year student of German Philology) and Grzegorz Witkowski (second-year law student).

From 24 to 26 June, the "Communicating green change" CoLab took place – an event dedicated to the analysis of challenges related to sustainable development and the development of solutions for green transformation. It provided a space for discussion on environmental change, transport and mobility, and the improvement of communication strategies. During the workshops and group work, the participants discussed issues in the field of intercultural communication, marketing, disinformation and current social challenges, and at the end they presented their projects. The next day, the participants of the event visited a local entrepreneur specialising in the medical industry.

The second event was the "Hackathon – COLOURful Impact: Shape Your City", which took place on June 26-28. The main theme of the competition was the development of modern, sustainable urban solutions for the cities of the future. The hackathon was based on the "train-the-trainer" formula, and the participating students and staff gained practical and theoretical knowledge about innovation, while contributing real ideas for cities. The event was organised by the COLOURS Student Forum with the support of the COLOURS Coordination and Support Office. The hackathon combined creative thinking with a practical approach to real-world problems, while offering a taste of cooperation with the business, corporate and administrative sectors – through work on projects inspired by the "Shark Tank" programme and the presence of representatives from the city of Paderborn.

Participation in the Hackathon was a valuable and very developing experience. The selection of speakers allowed for a better understanding of what urban planners and city authorities struggle with and to learn how to solve them. Comments on teamwork, creating project presentations and problem solving also turned out to be extremely important.

The recipients of both events were students, university employees, specialists in the field of business, research, administration and people from all over Europe, and the place of their implementation was the Start-up Campus OWL, Ausblick 1, 33100 Paderborn.