The School of Innovation has tested a challenge-based approach for its third-mission activities: the Econtrovertia Association, which joined the “Challenge-Based” program in March 2025, emerged from it at the end of April with a solid project—OrtoCucina Slow—developed by five students from various disciplines.
Environment and Future: When Is It Really Worth the Effort?
When is it truly worth committing to the future? For a group of students at the University of Trento, the answer came through a long journey of meetings, ideas, and a challenge launched by Econtrovertia, with the telling name: “Environment and Future: It’s Worth the Effort.” A challenge, yes, but also much more: an invitation to view climate change not only as a problem, but as an opportunity to grow, learn, and take action. And an opportunity for the School of Innovation to contribute to the sustainable development of the region and to the consolidation of a local community active in this field.
An Initiative Combining Impact, Training, and Experience
Guided by a diverse group of experts from SOI and Econtrovertia, the students had the opportunity to engage with industry experts, delve into real-world cases, interview stakeholders, and propose creative solutions to a concrete challenge: What does it take today to make young people feel like active agents of change?
Why “It Was Worth It”
We shouldn’t be surprised if we soon see some initiatives from the new OrtoCucina Slow project popping up around town—a sustainable cooking course with an immediate goal of promoting mindful and environmentally friendly eating habits, and an even more ambitious one: to involve more and more young people in volunteer work. This will ensure that more and more sustainable projects can be developed, perhaps through fruitful collaboration between universities and local nonprofit organizations.
The people
Segen Desalegen Atewebrhan, Elisa Frizzi, Stefania Giordani, Ionela Popova, and Alessandro Rapisarda—are the students behind the project, who emerged from the experience full of enthusiasm despite the hard work: “We experienced moments of joy, passion, and discouragement, when the solution seemed within reach and then slipped away at the last moment.” However, given the association’s enthusiasm—“we didn’t expect such concrete, precise, ready-to-use, and original results,” according to Mark L. Miller of Econtrovertia—and the School of Innovation’s comment that “they were among the best student teams in terms of passion, skills, professionalism, and practicality,” the collaboration seems to have been a complete success.
“The excellent collaboration with the School of Innovation and the great dedication of the University of Trento students in carrying out the challenge made it possible to create a highly effective project proposal to promote environmental activism. We are very satisfied with the work we did together and with the final product that emerged.”
Mark L. Miller – Econtrovertia
Experiences like this serve as a powerful reminder: when young people are given the opportunity to truly contribute, results follow. New ideas, enthusiasm, awareness. And, above all, the certainty that getting seriously involved is truly worth it.