A team of students from NHL Stenden won the Sustainable Innovation Challenge Friesland with an app for the cleaning industry.
Translation by Traci White
Omrop Fryslân reports that the finale of the competition was held at the Elfstedenhal in Leeuwarden on Tuesday evening. There were 300 students who took part in the competition, which focused on literaly environmental sustainability and social sustainability.
A team from NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences came up with an app comparable to Uber for clients and cleaners to find each other which gives cleaners the option to take on assignments at their discretion.
Mark Munt, a member of the winning team, told Omrop Fryslân that the team intends to develop the app further and bring it to the market. The students created the app on behalf of NIVO, a cleaning company that is interested in using the app in real life.
“The thing that makes this app especially useful is that a lot of cleaners work for small companies or independently and their work is sometimes overlooked because they typically work when buildings close for the day”, Munt says. “This app takes into consideration the fact that cleaners deserve a good work-life balance, too, and they can choose for themselves which hours they want to work.”
En de winnaar is… het innovatieve idee voor @NIVONOORD om de schoonmaakbranche te vernieuwen met de ‘NIVOP app’! De tweede prijs is voor @CaparisNV met de interactieve game ‘dochgrien’ en de derde prijs voor het team van @dmt_et met het keurmerk ‘biofuel’! pic.twitter.com/MPx2bRVJ5n
— Duurzame Innovatie Challenge (@DICFryslan2018) November 13, 2018
NIVO was one of the 16 companies and institutions which issued the challenge focused on specific sectors. As many as 12 of the developed ideas are expected to be followed up on and eventually made available to the general public. Four of the participants in the competition were also offered jobs as a result of their contributions.
The other teams who made the top three were working with DMT Environmental Technology from Joure and Caparis, a social services organisation from Drachten. The DMT team developed a biofuel certification label to make the mobility sector more sustainable, and the Caparis group created an interactive game to teach employees about sustainability.
The Sustainable Innovation Challenge Friesland was created by Ekwadraat, a consultancy agency focused on energy savings and sustainable energy sources. The competition consisted of three rounds and a finale. The winners were announced by the King’s Commissioner in Friesland, Arno Brok.
Photo source: duurzame-innovatie-challenge.frl
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