DEMOCRACY FESTIVAL

Living Lab for Sustainability

WHAT

Each year students enroll to transform sustainability challenges into prototype solutions with industry, politicians and civil society by hacking the format of Denmark’s Democracy Festival

HOW

Combining course collaboration across universities with a facilitated living laboratory at Folkemødet to explore, test, co-create and pitch solutions for acceleration

WHY

Creating tomorrow’s impactful minds to drive climate action. Catalyzing sustainable innovation with and for partners through youth-driven academic-anchored initiatives

LIVING LAB

New ways of engaging youth

Students Hack Folkemødet advantage on the great potential of using the set-up, activities and more than 100.000 politicians, industry leaders, organizations, and civil society gathered each year in June, during Denmark’s Democracy Festival to co-create and test concepts for new sustainable solutions.

Each year we invite new public and private partners to bring forward challenges addressing one or several of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Meet and engage with the involved students and partners at the festival in Allinge, Bornholm where you will be able to see, try and give feedback on everything from technical prototypes, to new business models targeting concrete sustainability challenges.

A PARTNERSHIP INITIATIVE

Join as partner, mentor or participant

We have been really pleased with the progress and we have also been able to use the work of the two groups. We have just started two projects that work on the thoughts that the students helped to initiate.
Lars Elmvang
Partner, Director of Strategy, Fischer Lighting
It has been very valuable for us! The solution ‘Kaffetræet’ have subsequently been brought out to both Ungdommens Folkemøde and this year (2020) becomes an active part of our presence at various festivals, fairs and exhibitions.
Rebekka Lorentzen Storgaard
Marketing Producer, Peter Larsen Kaffe
Students Hack Folkemødet has now become part our sustainability strategy at the festival – to provide a platform for young people to innovative new sustainable solutions.

Emil Juul-Pedersen
Responsible for sustainability, Foreningen Folkemødet

SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES

2020

5 partners joined with a sustainability challenge that were taken on by a total of 10 student groups (44 students), from Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen Business School, Aarhus University and Aalborg University. With partners and course responsible, the student teams have, within their Master courses and Bachelor projects, used their diverse academic disciplines to address below 5 sustainability challenges and develop their concepts for sustainable solutions.