Social Entrepreneurship
ETH4D aims to facilitate the up-take and scale-up of ideas through start-ups, NGOs, government agencies or industry partners. We support students and researchers that develop innovative solutions to global challenges.
Social Impact Pioneer Fellowship
The Social Impact Pioneer Fellowship empowers entrepreneurial ETH students and researchers in developing their research-based technologies into viable products and services with a social impact to successfully launch a scalable ETH Spin-off company. The Social Impact Pioneer Fellowship is awarded to projects that serve people living with less than 10 Dollars per day in low- and middle-income countries. All countries on the OECD DAC List 2023 are eligible (see DownloadOECD DAC-LIST 2023 (PDF, 204 KB)).
You will receive up to CHF 150’000 for 18 months (12 months for a team of 2 Fellows). In addition, you will get coaching, entrepreneurial training, support by your host Professor, access to ETH infrastructure and the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Application Window: 15 July - 1 September 2023
More information on the Social Impact Pioneer Fellowship and Application Form.
ETH4D Research to Action Grant
The grant aims to ensure that research results are being used, implemented, and disseminated. It supports ETH Zurich students, post-docs and senior scientists to develop prototypes, explore opportunities for entrepreneurship and discuss their work with practitioners. The grant sum is up to 5 kCHF.
Who: Bachelor students, master students, doctoral students, senior scientists, and postdoctoral researchers are eligible to apply. Students must be enrolled at ETH Zurich at the time activities are carried out.
What: Projects need to (i) have an institutional link to ETH Zurich e.g. previous research or courses taken at ETH or be connected with ETH initiatives and (ii) demonstrate global development-related impact by bridging the gap between research and practice.
Find more information about the Research to Action Grants here.
Check out the Research to Action projects of the first call here.
Aiducation International
external pageAiducation International awards merit based scholarships to bright and motivated, financially disadvantaged students in developing countries, so they can enter the highschool and fulfill their potential.
Founders at ETH: Dr. Florian Kapitza, Dr. Eva Köberl, Dr. Kristin Kapitza
breathe develops a low-cost, high-quality transport ventilator for use in low-resource settings. A user-centered design based on usability studies with local medical practitioners makes the ventilator accessible for both novel and experienced users. The simplistic design and a strong focus on key functionalities significantly reduce the costs of theventilator compared to other commercial products. The modular design and focus on local operating conditions make the ventilator easy to maintain and repair, enabling its long-term, sustainable use.
Founders at ETH: Dr. Thomas Lumpe, Engineering Design & Computing Group & Dr. Leonie Korn, Intelligent Control Systems
Candela Energy
external pageCandela Energy's mission is to build a community of practitioners working towards developing sustainable, life-improving technologies. Through both digital and physical platforms, they are connecting businesses to consumers in rural and urban communities to offer them access to a range of products and services from clean-energy to better healthcare.
external pageProject page Candela Energy
Founders at ETH: Amartya Mukherjee, Department of Management, Technology and Economics
This project is supported by the Student Project House
EquipSent
Laboratory equipment is a fundamental component of education at university level, yet it is often lacking in low-income countries due to high acquisition costs. EquipSent, our non-profit initiative, promotes access to hands-on education by facilitating transfers of out-of-use, functional equipment to educational institutions in need. Our completed cases took place in Southeast Europe and Western/Central Africa and currently benefit nearly 800 students. In the future, we plan to open paths in other regions of the world too.
external pageProject page EquipSent
Contact:
This project is supported by the Student Project House
Green Academy Africa
Enabling a green community-driven future, Green Academy Africa is an organization working on Green Urbanization in Africa. The first project is in Yayu Ethiopia, the goal here is to create water access for 1000 students using a localized approach. If you want to support Green external pageAcademy Africa or find out more click here.
Group leader at ETH: external pageFelix Abraham Matschie
Haelixa
Haelixa provides businesses with a disruptive technological solution to bring visibility and efficiency into their value chains by creating product marking technology that provides a traceable fingerprint from producer to retailer. The fingerprint is an invisible and robust in-product marker based on DNA.
Founders at ETH: Dr. Michela Puddu, Dr. Gediminas Mikutis
Nsesa Foundation
Nsesa Foundation runs programmes and projects aimed at helping young people develop their innovative potential, gain basic skills in engineering and computer programming and inspire more young women to take up roles in STEM.
Founders at ETH: George Boateng, Chair of Information Management
Oxara
Oxara aims to facilitate the re-use of construction waste (excavation material) and enables access to sustainable and affordable housing. Oxara's patented, cement-free admixture technology transforms waste into an environmentally friendly and cost-effective building materials.
Founders at ETH: Dr. Gnanli Landrou, Dr. Thibault Demoulin, Chair of Sustainable Construction
South Pole
South Pole works with businesses and governments across the globe. It helps realise deep decarbonisation pathways across industries, based on a thorough understanding of climate risks and opportunities in specific sectors, as well as the highest emission reduction standards.
Founders at ETH: Renat Heuberger, Patrick Bürgi, Thomas Camerata, Ingo Puhl, Dr. Christoph Sutter
SuaCode
SuaCode is a smartphone-based online coding course that aims to teach millions across the African continent how to code! Learners will be introduced to the fundamentals of software programming in the Processing language using their smartphones with the Android Processing Development Environment. Processing is a visual and interactive programming language based on the Java programming language. Because of its graphical and interactive nature, it is an ideal choice of language to teach introductory programming. The only requirements for joining SuaCode are an Android device and a commitment to learning.
external pageProject page SuaCode
Founder at ETH: George Boateng
Contact: