Stefanie Lange is the winner of the student sustainability competition at BTU

It earned #1 for a centralized, digital "bulletin board" with categories including reference books, furniture, appliances, clothing, housing, technology, and carpooling for all BTU members.

Stefanie Lange is studying industrial engineering (dual) in her 6th semester. She won the student sustainability competition at BTU with her idea for a digital bulletin board. Second place went to Zahidul Haque for the project: Microalgae CO2 Scrubber for home or apartment: future bioresource to combat Climate Change. Maryna Ponomarenko achieved third place. In the interview, Stefanie Lange talks about how she came up with her idea and why sustainability is important to her:

What was your motivation to take part in the competition?

In the truest sense: the nature of the thing :) I try to keep my own ecological footprint small and was excited about the chance to change something for the better beyond that with an idea.

Where did the idea for the bulletin board come from?

I live 45 minutes from the university and unfortunately far from a good train connection. If there had been a digital bulletin board, I'm sure a carpool would have been more likely to happen, but as it was, the search was limited to my own degree program or members of the BTU Facebook group. There is also a lot of untapped potential with reference books, as there is no way to reach out to all students across subjects and locations. The individual faculties do have bulletin boards, but only internal or external job openings are posted there and it's only one-sided because students can't advertise anything there. In short, I missed a low-threshold (i.e. without an account in social networks) digital exchange platform that can be used jointly by students and employees, which is now being created with the bulletin board.

What is the next step with the idea?

The eLearning team at the IKMZ is taking charge of the implementation and I am supporting - where possible - with research or detailed suggestions. The first step is to establish the necessary legal requirements and create terms of use. After that, the concrete categories will be defined and topics such as usability, search functionality and layout will be worked on in the coming weeks. There is no fixed date for the launch yet.

What do you think is good about sustainability at the BTU and what could be better?

I particularly like the fact that the Student Union changed the menu in the cafeteria last semester and now regularly offers vegetarian and vegan alternatives, as well as being more regionally and organically oriented. In the future, more charging stations for e-cars would be useful, but our environmental management is already very well set up, so I'm confident about that.

Thank you very much for the interview!

Contact

Josefine Kahle
Stabsstelle Kommunikation und Marketing
T +49 (0) 355 69-2215
josefine.kahle(at)b-tu.de
Stefanie Lange at the Senftenberg Campus (Photo: BTU, Ralf Schuster)