Copenhagen, Denmark – 19 August 2021 – Wetskills Challenge Day 5
By Anusha Mehta (Netherlands Water Partnership)
Our day began with some soft jazz music and a brainstorming session to get our creative juices flowing and develop out-of-the-box ideas. Laptops closed, coloured markers ready and on our feet, we used the reverse brainstorming technique to come up with ideas. This technique uses a method where we first list all the things that would be required to ruin stormwater systems in cities following which we backtrack and look at how we can improve every negative aspect. The session was full of great ideas and lots of laughter!
Our brainstorming session was followed by two training sessions, one on the Canvas Business Model and the second on Posters and Pitches. The Canvas Business Model provided us with a method to take the next step in developing a solution for our cases. It is a method to identify the needs of the client, the added value of our proposition, the resources available and our revenue structures and streams. The Poster and Pitch training provided us with tips and tricks to create our poster and develop a powerful pitch, two of the three outputs for our cases. It covered the importance of avoiding excess and irrelevant detail and sticking to the main message. The importance of not just content but also structure, tonality and non-verbal ques were touched upon. We also watched a great Ted Talk by a man who does not talk about anything while actually driving home the aspects that we should work on when giving a pitch or talk. The poster part of the training covered the elements that should and should not be in a poster with content and layout tips. In particular, it reminded us to get feedback on our posters focusing not just on the content as we all tend to do but on how it looks and getting the message across in a glance. Participants that have more experience in giving pitches and developing posters shared some of their experience with the rest of the group and Richard even shared a poster he made for his PhD!
Our group decided to head out into the city after the Pitch and Poster training to get some more inspiration for our case since one of our case areas is the city of Copenhagen itself. We got to bike around the city and think about how we could change and improve parts of the city by allowing for improved stormwater retention, treatment and re-use while also increasing the liveability of the city. Our day ended with a beer or two at the old meat-packing district. So all in all, a fun and successful day of developing lots of innovative ideas!
