Meaningful job market

UBTaktuell: Who is the Bavarian Impact Festival aimed at?

Prof. Dr Eva Jakob: The Bavarian Impact Festival (https://www.bavarianimpactfestival.de/) is aimed at students from all disciplines who are interested in discovering opportunities in the field of impact - i.e. socially or ecologically oriented - companies and organisations, whether as founders or with meaningful jobs. The aim is to inspire, network and provide opportunities to discover new perspectives for a sustainable future.

What can visitors expect?

The festival offers exciting impulses from companies such as Patagonia, ecosia and premium cola, which show how companies can operate sustainably and what opportunities there are to make a career for yourself in an environment that lives sustainability. There will also be the opportunity to get to know impact start-ups, companies and organisations during job matching and at the trade fair. Participants can also develop their own ideas for an impact start-up in workshops or receive coaching with an existing start-up idea. The event concludes with networking and live music.

Why this event?

I have observed for many years that highly qualified and motivated students are interested in the impact sector because they are interested in their respective subject and sustainability at the same time. However, most students end up following traditional career paths. With this event, we want to offer an opportunity to get to know a different "world".

What results do you hope to achieve as the organiser?

In our joint project U4Impact from the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Bayreuth in cooperation with the Nuremberg Institute of Technology, we hope to attract students as talents for the impact entrepreneurship sector. Either by considering an impact start-up for themselves or perhaps by simply trying out a job in an impact start-up.

What else is going on in the Impact4U project?

U4Impact is the umbrella project under which the Bavarian Impact Festival is organised. Our aim is to use our formats to provide students and employees in the university context with entrepreneurial skills and a suitable network so that we not only talk about social challenges, but also develop and support solutions to them. In the coming semester, for example, there will once again be a range of seminars open to all degree programmes that will give students the opportunity to develop their own ideas for solutions in an interdisciplinary team: in the Bachelor's programme "Impact Entrepreneurship Ideas - Developing Solutions for Social and Ecological Problems" (German, approx. 5 CP) and in the Master's programme "Impact Entrepreneurship - Developing Social and Ecological Innovations" (English, approx. 5 CP). Further teaching programmes and many inspirational formats during the year can be found here: https://www.sent.uni-bayreuth.de/de/Projekte/U4Impact/index.html. U4Impact is driven by the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation in interdisciplinary collaboration, for example with Prof. Dr Steinbauer (Sports Ecology), Prof. Dr Döpper (Environmentally Sound Production Technology) and Prof. Dr Bartelmeß (Nutritional Sociology)