Societal Impact through EntrepreneurshipStudents pitch ideas for creating a sustainable economy and society

16 May 2024, by Claudia Sewig

Photo: Universität Hamburg / Röttger

Prof. Dr. Jana-Michaela Timm is a junior professor of business administration with a focus on sustainable investment and management at Universität Hamburg.

How do I start a business? How do I realize an idea so that it has a societal impact? What does sustainable growth mean? Students tackle these questions in a course at the University. To present the resulting ideas, Universität Hamburg is bringing the city’s social entrepreneurship scene together for the first time on 31 May in the Jupiter building, explains Prof. Dr. Jana-Michaela Timm of the Department of Socioeconomics in the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences in an interview.

Her course is titled “Societal Impact through Entrepreneurship.” What can students expect?

The idea was to make the whole thing a little bigger, even if only the name. We want to show that it’s not just a social entrepreneurship course; rather, it’s about creating a positive impact through entrepreneurial thinking and action. The students should learn that in this course.

The course is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

That’s correct. Together with Prof. Dr. Michel Clement (Faculty of Business Administration), Prof. Dr. Rouven Seifert (now at the University of Rostock) and Universität Hamburg’s Knowledge Exchange Agency, we successfully applied for a BMBF project in the area of social innovations and social entrepreneurship education. The project focuses on the ability to develop more teaching formats that are truly innovative at higher education institutions. The end product is this course.

Who can take part?

Here, students from various subject areas come together: students of the Master of Innovation, Business and Sustainability (MIBAS) and the of Master of Science in Interdisciplinary Public and Nonprofit Studies (PUNO)—both run by the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences—and master’s students from business administration and industrial engineering and management.

Is this the first course of its kind?

No. I’ve actually already held various formats in 3 different courses in the past few years and previously wrote about the subject in my doctoral dissertation. What’s new is that I’m combining the most interesting methods and content from the previous courses into one: entrepreneurial mindset development—that is, the development of innovative personalities in the corporate sector—the adaptation of actions to major social challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, and the entrepreneurial implementation of these. Therefore, it is about the 3 pillars of self-development, idea development, and business-model development. At the end, these ideas for creating a sustainable economy and society are pitched to a broader public and jury. And this will take place for the first time in a large, public setting in the Jupiter building in Mönckebergstraße.

And the jury then takes on the projects?

That may well be the case! Among others, Dr. Birte Prinzhorn—co-CEO of Impact Hub Hamburg—is on the jury. At Impact Hub Hamburg, there are entrepreneurs who would further develop these ideas if the students don’t want to do so themselves. Florence Müller, manager of Hamburgische Investitions- und Förderbank’s InnoImpact funding program, is also on the jury and can encourage students to apply for funding to realize their ideas. And I would also like to invite impact investors to talk to the students at the event. If they find an idea to be promising, they will also approach the students.

So, students can realize their project ideas themselves?

Yes, that is the idea behind it. But they often fail to do so due to a lack of time. In my opinion, what’s missing are teaching-learning formats that provide students with the opportunity and the time to actually realize their ideas. My dream would be some sort of practical semester during which they could do something like this as part of their studies and receive credit points.

Among the advisors for the closing pitch is Esin Rager, St. Pauli’s vice president. But that has nothing to do with promotion to the first division, does it?

No, even though it’s a great fit! It was very important to us, especially in the entrepreneurial field, that women speak on stage and show they make things happen. Esin Rager is incredibly fascinating in this respect, because she was a pioneer as the founder of the organic tea brand Samova. At the time she founded her company, nobody else was really focused on organic and fair trade. And she had success with it in normal supermarkets. As vice president for sustainability at FC St. Pauli, she is also turning the football club upside down in this area. All in all, Rager brings a feminine, visionary, successful, and also somewhat unconventional perspective to the table.