SIMagination Challenge

Buzzing About Brand New Products and Getting them Online

sanda.bjelan — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:08:12 +0000

The last few weeks have been very exciting and eventful. Our second travel group came back from South Africa with amazing products from our producer Little Green Number. Together with Little Green Number, we have developed a very appealing and fresh design for our messenger/weekend bags and iPad/iPhone cases.

Our prototypes: Messenger bag, iPad case and Weekender

Only one week after the return of second group, we promoted our project through a volleyball tournament at the gym of the University of St.Gallen. As we organized an active fun afternoon, we asked the participants for a 10 CHF contribution to prove again the underlying logic of our project that sustainable business development is built on cleverly created win-win situations. Of course we also used this opportunity to show our brand new prototypes to fellow students and volleyball enthusiasts.

Volleyball Tournament – Winning for Project Xhuma

Since we are restless, we are not going to wait to find the right retail partners in Switzerland to start selling our fresh bags. Instead, we are currently setting up an online shop, which will allow us to sell our products independently. Next Thursday, we will have another chance to test the resonance of our products at a local eco market in St. Gallen. Time is moving quickly, but so are we.

Only five weeks to go and still a few tasks to tackle

wenke.stalling — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:25:47 +0000

In five weeks most of our team will leave St. Gallen for the summer break.
Until then there are still a few task to do:

Fundraise 2800 Chf to cover ALL our costs
Get the exchange between German and Paraguayan school running
Evaluate our total impact
Exchange with the cooperative
Administrative tasks such as interim report, final report, annual report of our association, expense claim

I hope we will be able to complete all tasks successfully!

P.I.E.C.E.S Peru achieves sustainability

vincent.barras — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:20:37 +0000

After missing the first week of classes because our SIMagination project surpassed the allotted winter break, we rushed to settle back into university life. Once we were caught up with class readings and group projects, we invited Carlos, our inspiration for P.I.E.C.E.S Peru, to dinner. We were able to share our experiences at his alma mater, Sagrados Corazones, and with many of his former teachers along with many of the wonderful memories that shaped our time while in Peru. Carlos was very happy with our progress, and we felt confident that our mission to improve the lives of Peruvian youths was accomplished.

Since our return from Peru over six weeks ago, our team has continually updated the official P.I.E.C.E.S Peru Facebook page. We have uploaded the new video from our Regulars Table presentation, pictures from recent travels and posts relating to the Alumni Network. Working with the P.I.E.C.E.S Peru Alumni Network, which was established through a partnership with a university in Lima, has proved to be a bit of a challenge. However, as expert project managers, we worked diligently to assure that they received appropriate documentation and support materials to further the mission of the P.I.E.C.ES Peru Alumni Network.

Finally, we showcased a presentation at a P.I.E.C.E.S recruiting event and were actively involved in the selection of the next generation of Peru volunteers. We led several interviews with potential candidates and are proud to report that five HSG students will continue the project at Sagrados Corazones this summer. We couldn’t have asked for a better experience in Peru and continuation of our project with the Alumni Network and the future HSG P.I.E.C.E.S Peru volunteers.

Entering the network of social entrepreneurs

zuzana.karlubikova — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:17:45 +0000

The four of us, who are currently in Johannesburg, devoted this week in South Africa to gather vivid videos and photos for marketing purposes. We spent Monday morning with our supplier filming the various steps of the production process, which basically consists of cutting, washing, ironing and sewing old billboards into beautiful and robust bags and cases. Later that day, we headed to meet the founder of e’Pap, an “instant pre-cooked and fortified food supplement formulated to ensure bio-availability and absorption of nutrients to help the body perform at its peak”.

Meeting the founder of this social business, Basil Kransdorff, convinced even the toughest critics amongst us that e’Pap is not one of those scandal creating powders, but a true mean to “return the body to a state of nutrient repleteness”. We did not only profit from Basil’s experience as social entrepreneur, but also from a representative of Credit Suisse and HSG alumni. She joined the meeting as she is shadowing e’Pap for two months to research what role Credit Suisse (and banks in general) can play in the field of social entrepreneurship.

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday at two pre-schools, playing with the children, assessing their needs and interrogating the teachers and principals how their schools have developed with the assistance of Education Africa, our NGO partner in Johannesburg. The didactic training of school teachers and principals has turned out to be the most important factor to raise standards at pre-schools in South Africa’s underprivileged regions.

Planting the Future in two St. Galler newspapers

mona.moschko — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 09:05:06 +0000

To boost our Bake Sale and broaden the awareness of our project in St. Gallen, the Planting the Future team approached several newspapers in St. Gallen and was able to be published in two of them.
Firstly, a short announcement of when the Bake Sale takes place was launched in “Werdenberger & Obertoggenburger” (regional newspaper East-Switzerland). Additionally, an article about Planting the Future was published in the St. Galler Tagblatt, explaining the general aim of the project, discussing its three pillars (financial education for families & cooperations as well as the school network) and informing about the latest developments.

Many people approached us with great interest about the project (e.g. at the Bake Sale) because they had read about Planting the Future in the newspaper. All in all, the articles were a great success and allowed us to reach more and more people and inform them about our aim supporting rural communities in Paraguay through education.

The second visit to Johannesburg

lukas.vorlaender — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:41:30 +0000

Our first trip to Johannesburg in February has been very successful. Our seven pioneers returned with several great mock products from 4 different producers, established a personal relationship with the staff of our partner organization Education Africa and got to see and feel the different sides of South Africa. Now, in April, another four-member team escaped the (seemingly) everlasting winter in Switzerland and embraced the challenge to work out functional and aesthetic adjustments of the mock products together with the local producers.

After today’s meeting with Juanita Van der Merwe, the manager of the social business Little Green Number, we are even more convinced that Little Green Number’s social mission of creating ethically correct employment and its high quality and ecofriendly produced bags make it the perfect supplier to help us turn our project into a long lasting success.

Right after discussing the latest changes of the mock products with Juanita, we rushed off to the office of Education Africa to bring them some delicious Swiss chocolate and discuss further details regarding finding the best solutions to support South African early childhood education and elementary schools.

Three days to go – getting ready for the trip

lara.haug — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 06:33:37 +0000

Here we are again with exciting news from our team. Only three days from now, our team is leaving for the big trip to Indonesia and will start our project work on Madura Island on Monday, April 8. After a long flight over Paris and a layover in Singapore, we will arrive in Surabaya on Sunday and meet our partner NGO’s representatives for the first time in person. Then directly the next day, we will start implementing the water filters.

Looking back at the past few weeks, we could celebrate some great fundraising successes and are therefore able to supply the whole Kelbung community with biosand water filters. After our successful bakesale, we hosted a fundraising party, which was attended by more than 100 students from the University of St. Gallen. Furthermore, we sold more than 70 PureDrops T-Shirts, designed by the eco fashion label Re-Bello. In addition to that, also the online fundraising campaign went well and brought in some more financial support from the crowd.

Now we are looking forward to our trip and are excited how the work on the ground will be like. We will keep you posted on our progress while on Madura.

Your PureDrops Team

Our Progress

clarie.kwa — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 20:52:15 +0000

As some of you may be aware, we have started “A Dollar a Day to keep a Child in School” campaign some time back. The intention is to raise scholarship funds to help the Cambodian children, especially those over the age of 16 to continue schooling.

Responses have been awesome. We have had donations from three continents. Special thanks go to one of our team members’ mum who helped us spread the word around her friends in Hong Kong, to an awesome former coach of another team member (he tells us to kick some ass and shake the world!) and Holger Trautman (see picture below), an equally awesome former boss of a third team member.


“First of all, when I heard from Ester about the initiative, I was surprised that something like that is promoted by a well-known Business School like St Gallen University. And it is great that the students support it seriously. Finally, enabling children to get a better education is definitely the right way.” ~ Mr. Holger Trautman explains his reason for his support toward Helping KAKO

That said, our journey is far from over. We still need your kind support to help more Cambodian children to continue schooling. Every drop makes an ocean and we trust that you will join us in kicking some ass and shaking more goodness into this world =).

Easter Bake Sale!

johan.bengtsson — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:08:20 +0000

After the first successful fundraising before Christmas when people in St. Gallen showed a great support of the project the group decided to make another fundraising today! The team was placed on Neugasse the entire day and sold homemade cookies and muffins.

Also this fundraising event was a success for the project and we would like to thank everyone who has contributed. Together we will Plant the Future!

/The team

Foster Home Project

sofia.mota — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:25:46 +0000

This week we successfully launched the Foster Home Project. In three days we found 25 godparents for the 25 kids living in the foster home. Each godparent will send a gift and a personal letter in Spanish. We will collect all the presents and letters and send a Easter package to all 25 fantastic children!

Thanks to all godparents!