On 25.04.2024 RIC "Ambitious Gabrovo" organized the second CRE8® workshop with the participation of students from Technical University - Gabrovo and students from the High School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and National Aprilov High School within the European project "Alliance of regional innovation ecosystems based on smart sustainable specialization strategies". The event is based on the Swedish CRE8® Workshop model developed by the University of Karlstad, Sweden. The idea is for enterprises to increase their intelligence and sustainability by tapping the creative potential of young people. Within 3 hours, the students and pupils, divided into 4 teams at random, had to find a solution to a problem formulated by the company Sentestate Technologies, which develops innovative solutions for environmental monitoring. The company's mission is to accelerate the world's transition to sustainability by increasing society's knowledge of the environment through technology. The challenge to the youth was "How can we increase community engagement with air quality issues?". The solutions that the teams presented within 5 minutes through the pitching method were extremely interesting, from a social platform and mobile apps to the use of influencers in TikTok. The four-member jury, including company representatives and members of the project team, had a very difficult time deciding on the winner, as all the teams had innovative ideas. What prevailed in the final evaluation was the team presentation and the answers to the questions asked by the jury. Team 1 won the first place with their solution to create a social platform for healthy outdoor living, including a mobile app with the possibility to report air quality pollution and encourage the platform users through additional functionalities to actively participate in the process, identify problems and activate relevant institutions to find solutions. An innovative strategy to promote the platform by deploying QR codes for direct reporting in public places was also presented. As the team says: "This is a platform by the community for the community. If we monitor air indicators, we will know where to walk, where to exercise, where to live, breathing cleaner air. If we take pictures of the pollution, organise campaigns and inform the responsible authorities, the whole community will live greener. The more active we are, the bigger our green footprint on the platform will be." The company gave the winners home stations for air quality monitoring.
