{"id":14307,"date":"2020-10-29T16:07:49","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T16:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kent-business-matters\/?p=4904"},"modified":"2023-03-30T09:16:41","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T08:16:41","slug":"bsuj-students-explore-how-nature-can-inspire-solutions-to-world-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/2020\/10\/bsuj-students-explore-how-nature-can-inspire-solutions-to-world-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Explore How Nature Can Inspire Solutions to World Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Understanding the potential for nature to inspire ideas was the topic of the first Business Start-Up Journey Ideas Hack boot camp.\n<\/p>\n

Using the Canterbury campus<\/a> as a living lab, students went into the ancient woodland of Brotherhood Wood, near to the Sibson building<\/a>, to explore how nature can inspire solutions to problems in the human world, using this problem solving as the basis for starting to develop business ideas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The boot camp began with an overview from the University\u2019s Sustainability<\/a> Coordinator, Emily Mason<\/a>, on the biodiversity crisis facing the planet. She explained how careful management of the University\u2019s natural capital was trying to counter it.<\/p>\n

Then, using the woods as their inspiration, students were set the task of developing an idea which would either tackle the issue of improving mental health or biodiversity. Ideas included a woodland adoption programme and classrooms based in the woods to promote a closer connection to nature.<\/p>\n

In the afternoon, students took part in a further interactive workshop in the Sibson building, generating ideas based on an understanding of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals<\/a> and looking at the subject of biomimicry.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Biomimicry uses the solutions which animals, plants, and microbes have found to help solve problems in the human world.<\/p>\n

They were led through a rapid idea generation session by ASPIRE\u2019<\/a>s Innovator in Residence, Jo Pullen, and ASPIRE Project Officer, Rebecca Smith<\/a>. The boot camp on Saturday 24 October followed a successful launch event<\/a> with a keynote speech by entrepreneur, Mick Jackson, who founded of the multi-million-pound global company, Wildhearts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mick talked about the purpose of \u2018business for good\u2019 and the importance of finding your \u2018why\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Business Start-Up Journey programme<\/a> is a mix of interactive workshops, mainly online in Teams<\/a>, real-life boot camps and one-to-one support. Students are guided through the process of starting a business, from finding, developing and testing an idea to creating financial and marketing plans and pitching for investment.<\/p>\n

The programme, which is philanthropically supported, ends with a pitching competition where student entrepreneurs can win \u00a31000 to help start their business.<\/p>\n

For more information contact\u00a0ASPIRE@kent.ac.uk<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Understanding the potential for nature to inspire ideas was the topic of the first Business Start-Up Journey Ideas Hack boot camp. Using the Canterbury campus … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74553,"featured_media":13985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[54,169048,151355],"tags":[170949,164121,5349,169090,151477],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74553"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14343,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14307\/revisions\/14343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}