That’s a Wrap, Everyone!

by YES! team

Our last stop was in the city of Essen. For the first time, we got the chance to welcome six teams to compete for the three spots in the National Final for the region West.

We were happy to have Prof. Dr Schmidt, President of the RWI Essen, speaking to our teams, encouraging them to be innovative and critical, and he emphasised on the importance of the dialogue between the researchers and the young participants of the YES!.

The first team to present was BBS Burgdorf Team 1 who came up with the idea of an app called “Plaastimu” – a mix of Plaas (Afrikaans for “Farm”) and Timu (Suaheli for “team). What is it for? The app, in a gaming style, is intended for African farmers. It checks the location of the farmers’ fields and based on the quality of the soil, the farmers can simulate growing various crops in different scenarios.

“1Feedback” – that is the answer of the team Cecilien-Gymnasium Düsseldorf to the challenge on how to build trust in online transactions. 1Feedback is a review system that can be implemented by any online shop and rewards users for their testimonials.

Next up was the team Elsa-Brandström-Gymnasium Oberhausen, and they focused on the challenge to reduce the conventional meat production. In their view, a combination of nudges, taxes and subventions could make the producers’ decision to change from traditional to organic and regional output.

Up next, the team of Heinrich-Heine-Gesamtschule Duisburg presented their idea to integrate migrants better into the society through intergenerational houses, foster families and mixed resident areas.

A different approach to integration was proposed by the team BBS Burgdorf 2. They believed in the power of socialising. Their idea called “Sub2gether” is based on providing German movies with subtitles. Together, immigrants and Germans work on these subtitles, which leads to the immigrants learning the German language and having fun at a mutual movie night.

The final solution of the day was called “YES, we care” by the team Gesamtschule Waldbröl. They wanted to implement a platform where lonely, older people and young people can register. As a result, older people get help and feel less alone while the younger ones can collect points to get a reward.

After the presentations and the pitches of each team, it was again up to the groups to find their favourite solutions. And here are the results of the vote: BBS Burgdorf Team 1, Cecilien-Gymnasium  Düsseldorf and Gesamtschule Waldbröl are the three teams to represent the region West at the National Final. Congratulations to these three teams as well as to all other teams. You’ve done a great job, and we genuinely believe that you will take a great experience home from the YES!.

Four regional finals within two weeks were a lot of work, many hours on trains and countless conversations with the teams, experts and teachers. We loved it, thanks for being part of this year’s YES! so far.

Now we are taking a deep breath, relax for a moment before we are getting ready to support the finalists on their next steps of fine-tuning their solutions. And we know from the past that the teams are going to raise the level of their presentations for the National final.

We are looking forward to September 27/28 in Hamburg.

All the best,

Laura, Kai, Sina and Jochen