Boot Camp Highlights - Day 2 and 3

The three day long Boot Camp section of the Challenge:Future Summit 2010 has come to an end yesterday, although the nine finalist teams are still working hard on their final solution presentations that will be one of the highlights on the main part of the Summit, which starts today, on May 17. Before we bring you news from the main part of the Summit, let's go briefly through the highlights of the 2nd and 3rd day of the Boot Camp:

Boot Camp Day 2 lectures

The lectures on Boot Camp days 2 and 3 focused on personal development, with business coach Marta Kos Marko taking the stage on Saturday to talk about what it takes to make a good presentation. We learned about how little details like posture, gestures, the way we talk or dress influence the way people perceive us and consequently our message.

In the afternoon, dr. Metka Tekavčič led an interesting panel sponsored by Studio Moderna that presented different perspectives. Paralympic skier Gal Jaklič made us think about how we can reach beyond human limits with determination, dr. Tadeja Jere Lazanski made us wonder about forgotten wisdoms of Mayan ancestors that could still be used in modern times, while Ruben Papian opened many interesting philosophical questions.

Exploring Bled

Despite another rainy day, we used the time between lectures to explore some of Bled landmarks. We went across the Bled lake with a boat, watched the reenactment of some significant historical figures who have lived or influenced Bled, and participated in a fun team competition.

Boot Camp Day 3 lectures

In the first lecture of Day 3, dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva introduced a business perspective on sustainability. According to dr. Zhexembayeva, businesses can be a great source of sustainable innovation, as they can penetrate international borders, can make fast decision and produce a lot of innovation. The problem is businesses are also under legal obligation to shareholders to make profit, so the big question is how do we find sustainable solutions and stay profitable? As we are already dealing with declining resources (as dr. Kajfež Bogataj explained well in her Friday lecture) and increasing demands from all sides (consumers, socially responsible investors), being sustainable may soon not be a choice, but a business imperative. Dr. Zhexembayeva also presented examples of how companies as big as Walmart are finding that being sustainable is good for their business, so the bottom line is that we need to find innovative ways to embed sustainability in businesses by internalizing environmental and social impacts for profit.

The second lecture of the day was delivered by prof. Colin Egan, who initiated a discussion about the meaning of brands by presenting different stories from the world of marketing. Developing good brans - either personal or corporate - is never an easy job, and the biggest challenge in brand building is getting people to believe you. Additionally, an important thing to keep in mind when building a brand is that brands are not what you say, but what you do. In order to have a successful brand, you always have to deliver on something and be special, unique to stand out in the mass of sensory inputs we're all bombarded by.

Student discussions

On both day we also dedicated some tome to open discussion about the Future of Challenge:Future, and on Sunday Ana and Dan introduced another Challenge of the Day: What can we do to to influence our community to adopt sustainable development? The main idea was that we need to develop leadership skills that will enable us to influence people around us to change their behavior. We can start by implementing small project, like recycling programs, using smart motion sensors to save energy we spend on lights, using social networks to share helpful tips with friends, and finding simple ways to make doing good more fun.

Inspiring for innovation

The formal part of the last Boot Camp day was was wrapped up with a video about TerraCycle, an "eco-capitalism" company that found a way to make profit by turning garbage into usable products. TerraCycle provides a great case study that we can use as inspiration to think about new business models and innovations that solve rather than create problems.

Get involved in the Summit!

You can still get involved in the Summit by participating online. We'd especially like to invite you to join the live video broadcast of the Gala section on Tuesday, May 18 from 3 PM - 6:30 PM CEST. You will be able to watch keynote speeches by Joel Barker and Donald J. Johnston, and see the Awards Announcements for this year's C:F competition.