GESS 2025


DRIVE CHANGE THROUGH A GLOBAL COMMUNITY

 

Get yourself ready for an unforgettable learning journey with like-minded peers from all over the world! Together with your international and interdisciplinary team, you will boost sustainable innovation to tackle global issues and solve the problems that matter. From defining your challenge, understanding the impact of your idea, and creating a sustainable business model, to the creation of your first prototype and the final pitches at the closing ceremony: You will run through the ups and downs of a real entrepreneurial journey, unlocking the transformative potential of AI-powered social innovation. In that way, each day, you will come one step closer to solving the challenges you are passionate about.

THE PARTICIPANTS

We proudly present our participants from all over the world and diverse fields of study.

GESS MEXICO

Carlos de Anda Martins Ferreira
Mexico

Khurram Shahzad
Pakistan

Hubert Van Caenegem
Belgium

Ricardo Barajas Osorio
Mexico

Iván Francisco Pérez
Mexico

Elia Salemi
Germany

Piotr Gątkowski
Poland

Daniela Pérez
Mexico

Dominik Maier
Germany

Szymon Wycisk
Germany

Jaime Elian Perez Padilla
Mexico

Karol Nahomi Cantú Sánchez
Mexico

Pablo Alcocer Barrón
Mexico

David Smith
Germany

Márton Havasi
Hungary

Amerigo Velletti
Germany / Italy

Hubo Yuan
China

Alfonso Misael Rodríguez García
Mexico

Chia-Li Wang
Taiwan

Pascal Schumann
Germany

Alan Javier Madero Villalpando
Mexico

Ivana Balcazar
Mexico

Silvana Isabel Juárez Vargas
Mexico

Luis Eduardo Macedo Cortés
Mexico

Samuel Aristeo Martin Rodríguez
Mexico

Karla Naomi Guzmán Muñoz
Mexico

Berenice Acevedo Navarrete
Mexico

Samantha Del Toro
Mexico

Estrella Harumi Rodriguez Aguilar
Mexico

GESS SHANGHAI

Freja Jansson
Finland

Rogelio Díaz
Mexico

Natalia Ramírez Núñez
Mexico

Andrea Valeria Cervantes Murguía
Mexico

Daniel Mendez Carrasco
Mexico

Christopher Deot Santana Padilla
Mexico

Sive Mbangiswano
South Africa

Elina Hadelia
United States of America

Luiz Henrique Bonvini de Moura
Brazil / Spain

Yuexuan Wang
China

Rosina Glas
Germany

Angelika Gurov
Germany

Philipp-Michael Handke
Germany

Kira Haid
Germany

Arth Amit Jain
India

Marco García
Mexico

Emiliano Lombardero
Mexico

Ashley Pineda
Mexico

Mati Ur Rehman
Pakistan

Leon Dehullu
Belgium

Yu Yan
China

Niklas Burkert-Scholz
Germany

Azer Ben Mahmoud
Germany

Parth Karkar
India

Mohammed Abiola
Nigeria

GESS MUNICH

Tim Tempel
Germany

Aparna Rajeev Thekke Kurungott
India

Verlinda Ibraimi
Germany / Albania

Aishwarya Sawkar
India

Mendy Wong
Malaysia

Selin Arpaci
Germany / Turkey

Nabil Romero
Mexico / United States of America

Baihui Liu
China

Luis Vering
Germany

Lina Maria Vaca Granados
Colombia

Kuldeep Kumar
India

Quirin Ball
Germany

Mahmut-Tamer Pineci
Germany / Turkey

Guzi Ao
China

Nina Brunner
Germany

Yohanes Edo Alexander
Indonesia

Shreenidhi Darbhe Ganesha
Germany

Sânziana Maximeasa
Romania

Venkata Anoushk Kolagotla
India

Nahoo Asteraye Tsige
Ethiopia

Frida Chávez
Mexico

Michelle Nzeke
South Africa

Mengxuan Huang
China

Maria Estrellita de Jesús Ortiz Castañón
Mexico

Valeria Elizabeth López Flores
Mexico

Isaac Hernandez Morales
Mexico

Yunis Ehlers
Germany

Marta Rosenheimer
Germany

Patrick Kludt
Germany

Jorge David Avendaño Montufar
Mexico

Parinoosh Parchami
Iran

Eya Dkhil
Tunisia

Franz Delman Vargas Alvarado
Guatemala

THE TEAM

Meet the organizers of this year’s GESS.

CEO SCE, Co-Founder Social Entrepreneurship Akademie

Klaus Sailer

Co-Founder Social Entrepreneurship Akademie

Andy Goldstein

TU Munich

Helmut Schönenberger

Executive Director Social Entrepreneurship Akademie,
Head of GESS

Kristina Notz

Social Entrepreneurship Akademie

Carola Vogel

Social Entrepreneurship Akademie

Valentina Vila

Tecnológico de Monterrey

Romain Pouzou

Tecnológico de Monterrey

Rafael Lorenzo Piñón

Tongji University

Yujie Sun

Tongji University

Xiuyu Zhang

Tongji University

Pei Pei

Tongji University

Chengyan Yao

Tongji University

Zhen Chang

Tongji University

Xuanyi Hu

LifeCo UnLtd SA

Emanuela Di Rito

Landshut University of Applied Sciences

Stefan Erber

Munich Business School

Nadine Chochoiek

University of the Bundeswehr Munich

Filipa Muñoz-Petersen

Social Entrepreneurship Akademie

Chiara Dalle Molle

The organizations behind GESS

GESS is an international program of the Social Entrepreneurship Akademie in cooperation with thought-leaders.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AKADEMIE

The Social Entrepreneurship Akademie was founded in 2010 as a network cooperation between the four Munich universities and their corresponding Entrepreneurship Centers. With an interdisciplinary approach, the Social Entrepreneurship Akademie strives to drive social change. Thereby, education is considered the key to societal change, as education paves the way for dealing with challenges.

Learn more about SEA.

STRASCHEG CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship (SCE) of the Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS) offers training and research programs in the field of entrepreneurship, and encourages innovation processes and the development of entrepreneurial personalities.

SCE supports business start-ups from science and guides young businesses from idea development to marketable innovation.

In this way, SCE actively contributes to shaping the future of our society and to establishing a comprehensive start-up culture. SCE was founded in 2002 as an affiliated institute of the MUAS. In July 2011, SCE and MUAS became one of the six EXIST Start-Up Universities in Germany.

Learn more about SCE.

Start2 Group

Start2 Group promotes innovation in companies and start-ups of all sizes. It connects the dots between corporates, academia & the startup ecosystem.

It empowers tomorrow’s entrepreneurial leaders and stimulates the creation of successful, innovative ventures.

Learn more about Start2

UNTERNEHMERTUM

UnternehmerTUM offers founders and startups a complete service from the initial idea to IPO. A team of experienced entrepreneurs, managers and investors supports founders with the development of their products, services and business models. The experts accompany them actively with building up their companies, market entry and financing – also via Venture Capital.

UnternehmerTUM was founded in 2002 by the entrepreneur Susanne Klatten. With more than 50 high-growth technology start-ups each year and its unique offering, it is the leading center for business creation in Germany.

Learn more about UnternehmerTUM

FOUNDERS@UNIBW

founders@unibw offers founders and those who want to become founders a lively and inspiring environment that promotes the transfer of research results and business ideas into innovative start-up projects.

They support the implementation of ideas in business start-ups and offer the support that founders need in the current phase of the start-up. They provide information and advice to people interested in setting up a business and arrange contacts to mentors at the Universität der Bundeswehr Munich and from the Munich start-up scene who can provide free advice on various start-up topics.

Learn more about founders@unibw

TONGJI VENTURE VALLEY

Tongji Venture Valley selects student entrepreneurship projects to promote innovation-based entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship-oriented innovation to cover more teachers, students and disciplines.

Tongji Venture Valley actively motivates companies to participate, bring in market resources and boost the combination of industry and education to achieve the goal that companies and the government could resort to Tongji Venture Valley when struggling with difficult problems or when having projects to be incubated.

Tongji Venture Valley associates with the existing work of relative departments of teaching administration, asset management, industry development and Tongji Science Park to complete the last kilometer project from university campus to science park.

Learn more about Tongji Venture Valley

EMPRENDIMIENTO

The Tecnológico de Monterrey mission is to prepare internationally competitive leaders who have an “entrepreneurial spirit” and a humanistic outlook.

In order to ensure that all students at the university uncover and grow their entrepreneurial spirit, the Tecnológico de Monterrey created the “Emprendimiento” responsible for cultivating and developing entrepreneurial competencies and attitudes in our students, supporting the creation and development of start-ups and businesses in our community, and advancing the research on entrepreneurship as an academic discipline.

The Tecnológico de Monterrey has always been a supportive partner of the Global Entrepreneurship Summer School since its establishment in the year 2008.

Learn more about Emprendimiento

LIFECO UNLTD

LifeCo UnLtd is a social enterprise, established over 2 decades ago during the times of segregation and marginalisation in South Africa. The enterprise focuses on 2 key elements: entrepreneurial education for youth, and entrepreneur development. It finds, funds and invests in emerging social entrepreneurs to expand their impact and access to market.

It facilitates programs focused on critical thinking, capital and entrepreneurial practice to schools and universities and is an active advocate for social impact – the organization is strategically placed to guide policy direction in South Africa and is a global influencer in the sector.

LifeCo UnLtd is also a global advocate for impact enterprise and impact investment and a founding member of the Global Social Entrepreneurship Network (GSEN).

The partnership with LifeCo bundles and introduces eight South African Universities to the GESS initiative – significantly increasing GESS’s University presence.

Learn more about LifeCo UnLtd

STEELCASE

Steelcase is an office furniture company that leads the way in creating great experiences by offering a range of architecture, furniture and technology products and services designed to help people reach their full potential. With its Social Innovation Goals it envisions a world where thriving communities have equitable access to opportunities through quality education and healthy environments.

Learn more about Steelcase