DCU Final Year Students Join International Entrepreneurship Challenge in Helsinki

DCU Business School final year students working on a sustainable entrepreneurship challenge in Helsinki in October 2025. Ten final year Business School Students from the BSc Marketing Innovation & Technology and the Bachelor in Business Studies programmes were selected to participate in an ERASMUS+ Blended Intensive Programme in Sustainable Entrepreneurship.

The CEO of the Finnish Happiness Academy presented two sustainability challenges – reducing the impact of microplastics and reducing food waste.

Over the course of a week the DCU students worked in small multinational teams to develop solutions, testing their ideas, developing prototypes, and pitching on the final day.

Experts from Turbiini Business Incubator (Finland) advised the students over the week. The Programme was hosted by Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (Helsinki), with students from HWR Berlin and UC Leuven-Limburg (Belgium). Dr Eric Clinton and Professor Colm O’Gorman led DCU’s involvement.

“During this one-week intensive programme the students worked in multi-cultural teams to develop and validate a solution to a sustainability challenges. Each team had to work through ideation, idea screening, and solution selection. They had to validate their problem definition and their proposed solution. This was a great opportunity for the students to experience working in diverse teams and to develop solutions to the sustainability challenges set by the Finnish Happiness Academy.”

“The Finns are frequently ranked as No. 1 on the World Happiness Report. The Programme also provided our students some time to get an insight into why this might be – as they experienced a little of Finnish life – sauna, salmon soup, and of course, Salmiakki (salted liquorice)…”