Grit Project 2015

48 hours of collaboration, entrepreneurship and creative solutions

The first weekend of March 30 students with various nationalities and from 30 different studies gathered during the Grit Project. They worked in multidisciplinary teams to solve problems of a commissioner, coached by experts to get the best out of their ideas. Students of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Reinwardt Academy and Academy of Fine Art in Education participated.

The Grit Project is an initiative of the Amsterdam Center for Entrepreneurship – a partnership of AHK, UvA, VU, and HvA - in collaboration with the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Students chose to work on ideas pitched by Stichting Museumstraat, EY (Ernst & Young), StartupAmsterdam and Amsterdam Economic Board. They worked on the cases and pitched their ideas in front of the jury, consisting of Mireille Reuling (alumna Fine art in Education), Enno Masurel (VU) and Steven Tan (IXA).

Museumstraat
One of the students was Davide Cattaneo, Italian exchange master student Classical Music and clarinet teacher. His team worked on the Museumstraat assignment, designed by Reinwardt Academy students. Museumstraat is a one day festival, where Amsterdam museums lend artworks to citizens opening their homes to the neighborhood, hosting and introducing the artworks. The event aims to reach people who usually don’t visit cultural institutions.

Davide tells about his Grit team: “An Italian ice cream finds its perfection with whipped cream on top and... here's my team! We have expanded the core idea of the Museumstraat, creating live expressions: live music, storytellers, live painting, food and drinks made by the international neighbors. The Museumstraat organization wants to cooperate with us, and we are very happy about it! It was a great experience to work together with all kinds of students, getting know different ways of thinking and finding a joint solution. In the upcoming weeks I will invite musicians for the event... I can't wait!”

Student Gitte van Reeuwijk helped to create this assignment in the context of the minor entrepreneurship of the bachelor Cultural Heritage. Gitte: “We were impressed with the outcome and we will definitely try to make the ideas work. The team helped us thinking out of the box and to look at the project from other perspectives. We will continue the collaboration with a brainstorm. Next year I would like to participate in the Grit Project as a student.” 

Building a better working world
Student Jiska Hansen (Fine art in Education) worked on the assignment of EY. Her team drew up a proposal in which the facilities budget would benefit EY Amsterdam's social surroundings rather than its own employees; meaning to support local sustainable initiatives.

Jiska: "I chose to work on this assignment because it represented values like respect, integrity and teamwork. I learned a lot working with people from various disciplines, coming up with practical solutions. The feedback given by the coaches, jury and other students was very useful. It was an intensive weekend, but despite the time pressure I really enjoyed it."

The winning team worked on the assignment of StartupAmsterdam, profiling Amsterdam as a city of startups.

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