EKA × T4EU 2025: Green Transformer Student Challenge

In August 2025, 24 students from 8 universities came to the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) for the Green Transformer Student Challenge, a five-day programme organised by the Transform4Europe (T4EU) alliance with EKA.

During the week, participants explored how creativity and teamwork can tackle sustainability issues through lectures, workshops, field trips and hands-on prototyping. Interdisciplinary teams—mixing engineers, anthropologists, designers and others—brought a wide range of ideas and expertise.

Approaches varied widely. One group looked at the impact of digital technology on everyday habits and suggested ways to promote healthier tech use. Another tested circular-economy solutions to reuse textiles and waste. Education was a key theme, with concepts to engage children in sustainability through creative activities. Other teams focused on community building and on reducing dependence on private cars.

At the final presentations, a jury assessed relevance, originality, feasibility and delivery.
First prize (shared):
Child Mode for encouraging digital well-being, and
Bag it, Build it for combining waste reuse with creative workshops.
Second prize:
Poolio, a car-sharing concept for sustainable mobility.

While some ideas need further development, the jury highlighted the value of the process itself: students showed how quickly new solutions can emerge when different disciplines work together.

The challenge was part of EKA’s “Creative Circularity” Summer School, held within the T4EU Summer School 2025 as an ERASMUS+ Blended Intensive Programme, which also included Recrafted: A Workshop for Shoe & Bag Upcycling.