Two Weeks Dedicated to the Sustainable Development Goals at ETH Zurich

While there has been unprecedented progress in poverty reduction, humanity is facing existential challenges such as climate change, environmental destruction, as well as persistent global poverty and inequality that urgently require collaborative action. In 2015, the 193 UN members have adopted the external pageSustainable Development Goals (SDGs)call_made as a universal call to action to fight poverty, protect the planet and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.
From 7-18 March, ETH4D together with other ETH units, researchers and students organised the exhibition and event programme “Together for the SDGs”. The programme aimed to raise awareness about the world’s greatest challenges and highlight how the ETH community is contributing to finding solutions. The events allowed for an exchange of ideas with researchers and students and to find like-minded people to work together to achieve the SDGs.

Pitch Event: Building a Sustainable Future

The pitch event was a great opportunity for students and young researchers to present their innovations that contribute to sustainable development to a jury and the audience. Etienne Jeoffroy from external pageFenXcall_made and Fajer Mushtaq from external pageOxylecall_made - two ETH spin-offs - provided valuable insights into their projects and how to take a project from idea to reality.
The main part of the event involved three-minute pitches from pre-selected student teams. The audience award for the best business pitch went to Felix Wang, who proposed Volf, a kitchen appliance for making plant-based meats at home. external pageTreeless Packcall_made and Seismohealth received the jury's award for the biggest potential impact. While Treeless Pack aims to replace conventional with micro-organism based packaging, Seismohealth proposes a sensor-based solution to assess safety for buildings in areas hit by earthquakes.
The Pitch Event was organised in collaboration with the ETH Student Project House, ETH Entrepreneurship, the Student Sustainability Commission, the external pageETH Entrepreneur Clubcall_made and external pageUZH Innovation Hubcall_made.

All projects:

• Low-cost seismic isolation system for low-income countries (presented by Sergio Reyes)
• Greentoilet (presented by Esther Greenwood)
• external pageTreeless Packcall_made (presented by Adam Aleksander Korczak and Patrycja Kucharczyk )
• Volf (presented by Felix Wang)
• Seismohealth (presented by Panagiotis Martakis)
• RiverXLabs (presented by Jessica Droujko)

African Leadership for a Sustainable Future – Stories to Inspire

The storytelling event, organised jointly between the African Students Association of Zurich (ASAZ), the ETH Student Project House (SPH) and ETH4D, offered a different, more personal approach to students' commitment to global sustainable development. Five members of ETH's African Community shared inspiring stories ranging from the power of education to overcoming obstacles and believing in oneself in the pursuit of contributing to the fight against global challenges. It was evident from the attentive listeners, the nods of agreement and the laughter that the sometimes serious, but often funny stories resonated with the audience. The Zurich-based Ugandan musician external pageAmaru Küngcall_made accompanied the event with moving musical intermezzi and even got the audience to sing along. All in all, it was a great evening which proved that storytelling works well as an creative approach to creating connections and sparking conversations about global sustainable development.

All speakers:

• Churchill Agutu (Doctoral Researcher, ETH Zurich, Energy and Technology Policy)
• Rebecca Enesi (Doctoral Researcher, ETH Zurich, Sustainable Agroecosystems)
• Jackie Ndem-Galbert (Doctoral Researcher; ETH Zurich, Food Immunology)
• external pageKingdom Fungai Karuwocall_made (MA, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva)
• external pageSamira Cabdullecall_made (MSc Student, ETH Zurich, Environmental Engineering)

Exhibition Tours for All Ages

Last but not least, we welcomed groups for guided tours of the SDG exhibition, where visitors got the chance to learn from and discuss with ETH experts about global poverty, sustainable food systems, designing health technologies for low resource settings, climate change and more. In addition to a tour for adults, the exhibition was visited by a second grade class from the International School Schaffhausen, with whom we learned about global poverty, unequal access to health care and sustainable lighting.

The exhibition was organised in collaboration with .