Sustainable Alumni - The Certificate in Sustainable Development and Social Innovation Group

24 June 2024 Alumni Network

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It was 1 October 2023 when 5 recent graduates of the Certificate in Sustainable Development and Social Innovation programme reached out to the Alumni Network.

Their request was very simple: “As we are eager to stay in touch, grow and continue working on common goals with our former classmates and alumni, we would like to establish a vibrant alumni community for our study programme with the encouragement and support of the Study Programme Director Prof Ariane König.” said Natalia Petrovova.

Their timing was perfect as this was 2 weeks before the official launch of the new alumni platform and one of coolest functionalities on the platform is the ability to create self-managed alumni groups. Now their group is one of the most active so far and we had the chance to speak to a couple of the founders and find out how the platform is helping them to reach their goals.

Natalia Petrovova

Shashi Bhushan

The group held its inaugural event on Environmental Citizen Science and its Implications for Policy and Practice in November 2023. They now have over 40 members who will be able to participate in a discussion forum, exchange media, and promote events to Certificate in Sustainable Development and Social Innovation graduates as well as other alumni. “The network helps us to keep ourselves motivated instead of our different levels of engagement in our families and jobs,” shares Shashi Bhushan. “I would like to see this group helping in shaping the next generation of environmentally conscious citizens through educational and engagement projects.”

While the group was created for students and graduates of the programme, their events are mostly public, which is aligned with the goal to “create a generation of environmentally conscious citizens.” The functionality of the group on the platform allows them to easily differentiate between events only for group members and those for all alumni as well as the public as a whole.

Their recent event on Climate Change: What does the future hold? Parsing the climate transformation at the data and beyond it was held on 14 May, when they hosted Sarah Hager, Senior Scientist from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and Andrew Ferrone, Head of Meteorological Department at Administration of Technical Agricultural Services from Luxembourg, as speakers.

Now the group is actively working on the upcoming event The Greenbelt: A vital and life-sustaining network around the city of Luxembourg taking place on the Kirchberg Campus on 11 June with architect Philippe Nathan as the speaker. This event is also public.

Prof Ariane König, the Study Programme Director who inspired this initiative, summarised the progress well: “It is wonderful to see the enthusiasm with which the alumni from this study programme are building on the offer of support by Andy Adams and the Alumni Network team to keep in touch and organise events! The programme provides a platform to discuss complex existential challenges humanity faces in the 21st century and equips change agents to engage in initiatives to transform prevailing unsustainable ways of thinking and doing. Continued joint fun activities and mutual support are just fundamental to continue to engage on such challenges with optimism and lots of drive. I am so glad this is happening, and extremely grateful to Nàtalia, Ganesh Rajmohan, Vikrant Naik and others who are taking the lead to get us started!”