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Students Martijn Savenije and Josephine Nijstad won with their team Wege prize 2016
Urban Environmental Management students Josephine Nijstad and Martijn Savenije have won with their Spaak+ team the 1st place and $15,000 in Wege Prize 2016, a global student design competition focused on the circular economy. A great achievement!
The Spaak+ team consists besides Josephine and Martijn, of Livio Bod, student at the University of Amsterdam and Dan Mulder, student at Utrecht University. They won the prize with their proposal for an on-site treatment system for hospital waste that reduces cost and environmental impact while maximizing the potential for resource recovery.
The jury appreciated their smart and effective solution for a huge issue as hospital waste. They valued their system approach, which included environmental and economic aspects, and the fact that the solution could be introduced anywhere in the world, in existing buildings and in new ones.
“As students, we’re always encouraged to develop ideas and theories, but this competition challenged us to actually figure out how our ideas and theories could be put into practice in the real world,” said Martijn Savenije. “When you do that you see very quickly the flaws in your ideas that can undermine the whole concept, and you need to be able to figure out how to address those issues. We did that by talking to as many professors and experts as we could and paying close attention to the judges’ feedback so we could understand how to make our idea better.”