Circular Campus Programme
Objectives:
- To educate university students and alumni about circular economy innovation and how it can help solve resource waste issues in their local context.
- To iteratively design and deliver an applied learning experience where participants can put the frameworks and skills they learn into practice via an innovation competition.
Project Duration: June 2021 – December 2023
Designed For: Circular Cities Asia
Role: Programme Manager
Overview: This hybrid learning programme brings circular innovation to university campuses across Asia. Students learn about circular economy principles and lean innovation via online webinars, workshops and an innovation toolkit. To put their learnings into practice, we host an innovation competition where teams submit and pitch circular business ideas that help solve waste challenges within their local communities. The programme also includes an innovation boot camp and co-incubation for select teams to develop and test their circular solutions.
The Circular Campus Programme is catered to higher education institutions, specifically in Asia. We partnered with universities that are interested in bringing applied learning opportunities to their students and alumni, specifically on the topic of circular economy innovation.
Our main university contact(s) become the campus liaison and champion the programme at their university. They recruit current students and recent alumni to register and take part in the programme. We invited people from across different disciplines to register. In previous offerings we’ve had students from engineering, business, design, environmental science, computer science and more.
Starting in 2023, we took a challenge-led approach and provided an overarching innovation challenge (e.g. plastic waste, which is relevant to all partner countries). We asked participants to pinpoint specific problem area(s) in their communities and identify opportunities to intervene. Prior to 2023, we left it up to the students to identify specific waste issues on their campus or local context that they want to create circular solutions for.
Circular Innovation Toolkit: The toolkit guides participants through the initial stages of their innovation journey, using a lean and circular approach. Teams work through the proprietary tools and other industry- recognized frameworks. [DOWNLOAD HERE]
Virtual Webinars and Workshops: The virtual sessions are meant to complement the toolkit. Participants learn about circular economy innovation, problem research and validation, and designing circular solutions.
Boot Camp: Select teams are invited to the innovation boot camp where they’ll have access to modules on various aspects of business development and live feedback sessions with an entrepreneur/circular economy practitioner.
Innovation Competition: After completing the sessions and toolkit, participants submit their circular business ideas for the competition. The shortlisted teams pitch their ideas during the finals event for a chance to receive incubation support and seed funding.
Co-Incubation: This co-incubation, in partnership with participating universities, gives winning teams the opportunity to use their campus as a test bed. Teams gain access to academic guidance and research facilities on their campus, and additional mentoring and coaching from Circular Cities Asia and other industry experts.
Programme Feedback: After each offering, we ask participants and university partners for feedback. We then analyse the feedback and integrate it in our planning for the next iteration. The information received is also used in programme reporting.
After the first two iterations of the programme, the Director and I worked with the Akina Foundation to clarify our theory of change. Having a theory of change has helped us to determine our impact indicators. It also helped with the framing of feedback questions we ask our participants, to see if we are achieving the proposed outcomes.
Globally, there is growing interest and momentum for transitioning to circular economic models as an alternative to the current linear models which have resulted in and continue to exacerbate various ecological, social and economic issues. In Asia, there are limited circular economy-focused learning programmes. Existing programmes are not easily accessible and often focus on the developed world and feature case studies from Europe. From speaking with faculty and staff of universities across Asia, we found there is a desire among educators to increase their domain knowledge of circular economy innovation and teach this topic to their students.