Together for the SDGs: Career Panel & Pitch Event

As part of the programme "Together for the SDGs", the Panel "Careers in Sustainability & Global Development" and Pitch Event "Building a Sustainable Future" took place. Over 80 students got a chance to get insights on careers and projects that tackle global sustainable development. 

Careers in Sustainability & Global Development

At the Career Panel, Shruti Patel, Senior Lecturer at ETH NADEL, Dr. Thibault Demoulin, Co-founder of Oxara, Malvina Pauchard, Product Owner at Inyova, and Stephanie Dreifuss, Director Partner & Clients at swisscontact shared their stories and motivation of their pathways on a diverse range of impactful careers. Lisa Isler, Executive Director of cinfo, provided perspectives from the job market on how to pursue a career in sustainability and global development.

With questions ranging from impact assessment to specific recommendations on how to get into these fields, the students engaged with the panelists curiously and critically.

In a closing, Dr. Omar Kassab, Head of ETH Sustainability, reminded students to: remain humble and curious, build a network, be witty & fast, trust the process, listen to people, be open to try things, and be persistent all while appreciating their privilege.

The event was corganised by ETH Sustainability, ETH4D and cinfo.

Pitch Event: Building a Sustainable Future

The Pitch Event showcased selected innovations that contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by student teams at ETH Zurich.

The event was kicked off by Gnanli Landrou and Patrick Stadler. Gnanli Landrou gave insights into his project external pageOxara, which aims to facilitate the re-use of construction waste and enables access to sustainable and affordable housing and Patrick Stadler on external pageCharity Entrepreneurship, an effective altruist organisation that helps start multiple high-impact charities based on extensive research.

In each three minutes, the following student teams presented their idea, which global issue they tackle and the potential impact of the solution to the jury and the audience. 

Projects: 

  • external pageDigit Soil: rapid and easy measurement of soil health - presented by Hélène Iven
  • Planet Gone Wrong: gamifying the SDGs to raise awareness - presented by Jake Casselman
  • openversum: locally manufactured drinking water filters - presented by Olivier Gröninger
  • Spiralys: integrating spirulina farms to biogas facilities - presented by Frank Oberson
  • external pageAntefil Composite Techrevolutionizing the composites manufacturing industry - presented by Christoph Schneeberger
  • external pageSuaCode.ai: democratising coding education across Africa using smartphones and AI - presented by George Boateng
  • Kapoksustainability assessments based on satellite images and machine learning - presented by Riccardo de Lutio
  • Kaldipredicting coffee quality of smallholder farmers through satellite images and machine learning - presented by Yash Agarwala & Marco Magno

In the end, the project Kaldi won the audience award for "best pitch", while openversum and Antefil won the jury prize for "biggest potential impact". Congratulations!

A huge thank you to all pitchers, the jury and speakers with Patrick Stadler, Gnanli Landrou, Mariana Christen Jakob, Leonie Hensgen and Barbara La Cara, and JP Vuilleumier the pitch trainer, to Adina Rom and Frank Odhimabo for moderating, and of course to all participants for coming!

The event was co-organised by the ETH Student Project House, ETH Innovation & Entrepreneurship Lab and ETH4D.

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