New ideas, energy, and inspiration when LUSEM students develop catalyst mindsets for sustainable change

Change Maker Future Track offers organizations a chance to work with LUSEM Master’s students and help to mold a mindset in the students that will be a catalyst for the sustainable development. The graduation ceremony featured presentations from the students, a diploma ceremony and a stipend for every student generously given by Sparbanksstiftelsen Finn.

A luxury to brainstorm with the smart youth

The challenges presented differed between the three challenge owners Sony, Barnfonden and the City of Lund. In the journey of the student’s personal development, they came up with very different suggestions to the challenges they were facing. Ranging from selling NFT’s (Non-fungible token), to an online portal, to a solution for collective funding.

Martina Hibell, director of Barnfonden poses that:

“Without the students this project would not have taken place, simply because we don’t have the resources. Our wicked problem focused on finding a funding model for an issue that is tricky to explain, but very effective to prevent harm and suffering (funding before a disaster strikes rather than in its aftermath). We are convinced that the global challenges we face need to be addressed through multisectoral collaboration, new kinds of partnerships and dialogues, new ideas and innovations. It is a luxury to get the possibility to have a group of committed and smart youth, guided by a university programme, to brainstorm around finding solutions. We hoped for ideas that we would not come up with ourselves... which we got!”

Once Barnfonden has done their own feasibility analysis on the idea, they are considering offering an internship (or two) to the Change Maker team to help them get the idea off the ground and test it.

A win-win situation

While the aim of the track is to create a chance for students to understand complexity and developing a mindset for sustainable development, the project is a win-win since the participating organizations and coaches also gained new ideas, concepts and contacts.

“As partners to LUSEM, we were curious about this new track for sustainable development. I myself have a master's degree in economics, from Uppsala. But back when I studied, there was no discussion at all about sustainability. It is very important to get this into all education as I see it,” says Karin Ahltin, challenge owner from Sony.

She adds:

“I will have good use of the results in my work and the students cooperated very well, everyone's ideas and opinions were respected. They were ambitious and well-read. It was great to see the collective intelligence blossom in the group.”

The coach Josefine Ejlertsson is sales manager for Oatly in Denmark and Norway. She coached two students and says that:

“When I was asked to participate, it was a given yes from my side. I studied in Lund and graduated 10 years ago from a fantastic master program in technology management led by Stein Kleppestø. That programme had a lot of time for reflection and feedback which made me grow as a person defined my view of leadership. When I discovered that the Change Maker Future Track was led by Stein, I saw an opportunity to give back to the community, but also as a new opportunity to learn and reflect. There are so many things that I bear with me from these sessions, in a way it has been like looking backwards on my previous 10 years understanding why things have ended up like they have.  I am grateful for Emilia and Anton’s willingness to share their thoughts, reflections, and feelings.”

New partners in the track have already signed up

The Change Maker Future Track is generously funded by Sparbanksstiftelsen Finn and the planning for the school year 2022/2023 track is already in the works. We will be opening for any of the master programmes at LUSEM to apply, making the mix of students even more interesting.

Two exciting new challenge owners have already signed up, but we are still accepting applications for both challenges and coaches. The student application is open until 7th May.