St Hilda's Students Take Part in Entrepreneurship Trip to ETH Zurich

"We spent our weekdays in the student project house, which is an initiative set up by ETH solely dedicated to extracurricular student projects. The project house was stocked full of very cheap to use equipment including a large supply of 3D printers, laser cutters etc. Aside from the equipment the student project house was designed to have an environment where everybody could talk and share their project ideas and has been the base of multiple start-ups which have formed out of ETH.

During our week there our main goal was to produce a product using the tools available that could also be commercially viable. Key to this were Zuzi and Felix. Every morning we had a 1-2 hour coaching session with Zuzi who pushed us to consider the blind-spots we hadn’t already, she made sure to direct our focus to the inherent biases we had towards our own project ideas and to make us flexible to pivoting or modifying the way our project is communicated. Felix was extremely passionate in helping us physically construct our projects and his technical knowledge along with his proactiveness made our time really enjoyable and efficient.

The week at the project house culminated with us pitching our idea to other ETH students and applying all our coaching into making sure we had clear design decisions that we could communicate concretely to the rest of the students. In the evenings we spent some time with the ETH entrepreneurship club, this is run by students who took the time out of their busy schedules to host us.

We learnt from them about how many psychological barriers we had put up to what we can do, and they helped us realise that just making that first decision opens up huge amounts of opportunity. We now take back to oxford a completely new perspective on and mindset to approaching entrepreneurship and an understanding of a different and great academic culture."

"We had the opportunity to visit ETH Zurich’s Student Project House and Entrepreneur Club. During the programme at SPH, we were taught how to develop a solution based on problems that we had identified. The issue that I chose to address was “How can we increase physics engagement in the classroom?”, for which I modified the design of a rattleback (see videos), a device which moves in an unintuitive way when spun. Students would then be challenged to come up with some ideas about how it could work. To create our projects, we were given access to many different tools, including 3D printers and laser cutters, which it was exciting to learn to use.

The Entrepreneur Club also taught us many things, including about start-ups. We were invited to the UPortunity event, where the start-ups to have recently completed ETH’s Entrepreneurship programme were pitching. It was inspiring to see the range of ideas on display. During the week, I found that founding a company felt like a much more realistic prospect, having met so many people who had gone through the process.

Later in the week, we had the opportunity to deliver our own pitches to other students at SPH, which was a useful experience in being able to persuade others why the issue I am addressing is important.

We also had time to explore much of the city. I especially enjoyed spending time near the lake and the Limmat river, both running and swimming. The Lindt factory was another highlight.

Thank you so much to everyone who has made this trip possible. There are many skills that I have learnt that I hope to be able to put to use throughout my career."

"I had the fantastic opportunity to travel to ETH Zurich in Switzerland as part of an entrepreneurship start-up club.

During the week, we met students from ETH Zurich's entrepreneurship club and spent much of our time at the Student Project House. We took part in coaching sessions that showed us how start-up ideas are developed, from identifying problems and interviewing potential users to carrying out research and using evidence to improve an idea. It was a great introduction to the entrepreneurial mindset and gave me a new way of thinking about innovation.

One of my favourite parts of the trip was using the Student Project House's prototyping facilities, including 3D printers and laser cutters. I came up with an idea for a website that lets people customise phone stands and was able to design and print prototypes to bring back with me.

We also had the chance to pitch our ideas to other students and entrepreneurs, hear about the projects they were working on, and exchange feedback. It was inspiring to see the variety of ideas people were developing.

Outside the workshops, we made the most of our time in Zurich by swimming in the lake, hiking, visiting a chocolate factory, enjoying evening walks around the city, having a barbecue, and watching World Cup matches together. It was an unforgettable week and I came away with new skills and great memories."