Students Deliver at Expo 2023

 Two thousand five hundred and ninety-three (2,593) students across SERC took part in the annual Enterprise Challenge across Bangor, Downpatrick, Lisburn and Newtownards Campuses.

This exciting introduction to Project Based Learning (PBL) takes place each September when students are set a real-world challenge related to their subject area and given one week – working in teams - to develop a solution.

This year, the challenge/solution had to cover at least two of the 2023 PBL themes – Mindfulness, Exercise, Food & Nutrition; Enterprise, Entrepreneurship & Work Environment; Digital Innovation & Online Wellbeing; Energy Conservation, Upcycling & Waste Reduction; and, Community Engagement & Social Inclusion.    If you visited any of the Expos, you would have seen projects across all the themes, with many projects covering several areas.

Judging each of the projects proves to be a mammoth and very exciting task, and this year it involved 32 external judges (many from local businesses or entrepreneurs themselves), as well as hundreds of academic and corporate staff who signed up/showed up on the day to see, hear, experience and taste what the 696 student teams had to offer.  

There was a buzz about the College during Expo Week, and it wouldn’t be half as exciting if it wasn’t for the tremendous student effort. Huge thanks to everyone who took part and to all the external and internal judges for their support.

Keep your eyes peeled as those hundreds of projects will be whittled down to between eight and ten projects that will go forward to the Expo Final in a bid to be crowned Expo Champion 2023.