Back 15.09.2026 Partnerships & projects, Corporate news

COEUR 22 at BHMS: Where Sport, Technology and International Ideas Met

A stadium queue. A child’s screen time. A skier’s next move. Rehabilitation after injury.

These are not abstract classroom topics. At COEUR 22 in Lucerne, they became the starting points for business ideas designed by international student teams under real pressure: limited time, mixed disciplines, unfamiliar teammates and a final pitch in front of an expert jury.

Hosted by BHMS Business & Hotel Management School, the 22nd COEUR EuroPreneurship Innovation Workshop brought together 39 students, nine coaches and four BHMS staff members for “From Arenas to Algorithms: The Event Innovation Challenge.”

For one intense week, Lucerne became a working lab for the future of sport, events, health and technology.

The week was intense, but that made it even more rewarding. In such a short amount of time, we went from meeting people from different countries for the first time to working together as a team and presenting a complete concept in front of a jury.

International teams. One shared challenge.

Students and faculty arrived from partner institutions in Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Switzerland, China, Finland and Scotland. They represented Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Hochschule Mainz, the University of Economics in Bratislava, BHMS, Guangzhou Nanfang University, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences and Robert Gordon University.

Then the real work began.

International teamwork is rewarding, but it is not always comfortable. Different communication styles, expectations and approaches to problem-solving can create friction. That is also where the learning happens.

For BHMS students, this is familiar territory. Hospitality and business careers rarely stay within one market, one culture or one way of working. COEUR offered a concentrated version of that professional reality—ambitious, multicultural and fast-moving.

We all approached the challenge differently because of our different backgrounds, and that pushed us to look at the problem from perspectives we probably would not have considered on our own.

From workshop table to the real world

A good idea is only the beginning. The programme challenged students to ask tougher questions: Who is this for? Why would they use it? Can it work commercially? How should it be presented?

Through workshops in Design Thinking, Value Generation, the Service Marketing Mix and pitching, teams moved from early concepts to investor-style presentations. Coaches including Sari Haavisto, Tomasz Dyczkowski, Laura Chavez and Kristian Olek brought expertise in marketing, innovation and business into the room.

Guest speakers Sebastiano Mereu and Jorn Schlimm explored artificial intelligence in sport: its practical applications, its limits and the changing relationship between technology, sporting organisations and audiences.

The learning also moved beyond campus.

At Olten’s ice hockey club, participants met the CEO and went behind the scenes of a professional sports organisation. It was a direct look at the operational detail behind matchdays, venues and fan experiences.

At the Swiss Paraplegic Centre, students explored Paralympic sport and athlete training, while discussing where AI can provide meaningful support—and where human care, judgement and participation must remain central.

For parents, experiences like these matter. They show structure behind the adventure: academic input, industry exposure, professional coaching and clear outcomes. No serious school should promise a dream job. It should offer students a stronger starting position, sharper judgement and experience they can explain confidently in an interview.

Ideas with a purpose

The COEUR challenge produced a wide range of concepts. Some aimed to improve the fan experience; others focused on accessibility, rehabilitation and healthier lifestyles.

Student teams proposed:

Smart activity bracelets that encourage children aged 8–15 to exercise more
A supportive exoskeleton-style concept for hikers
AI-enabled ski goggles to enrich the skiing experience
A stadium app to reduce queueing time, helping spectators stay present for key moments
An outdoor activity app that recommends suitable sports and movement options
A rehabilitation app, potentially offered through insurance providers, to support people during physiotherapy and their return to sport

The strongest concepts did not treat technology as decoration. They used it to solve a clear human problem.

The Purple Team won the Overall Innovation Challenge with its smart activity-bracelet concept for children. The team considered not only the product, but also its growth model, scalability and commercial direction. Their proposition addressed a modern concern with a practical twist: rather than asking young people to abandon technology, it used technology to encourage them to put down the screen and get moving.

Purple Team members: Samuel Chukwu, Emilia Sweda, Agatha Hudeková, Luisa Filbert, Melicent Anne Casalla and Chapman Cheung.

The Green Team received the Best Presentation award for its visual quality, storytelling and confident delivery.

Green Team members: Daisy Ramsay, Alicja Gabryszak, Annamaria Kupková, Zoe Tsui, Emmanuel Kimani and Fylquincy Britney Omondi.

Their work was assessed by a jury including Andrea Stropkova, Dean; Jorn Schlimm; and Michael Hyvarinen, BHMS Lecturer.

COEUR showed me that innovation is not only about having a great idea. You have to understand the people you are designing for, challenge your assumptions and find a way to turn the idea into something that could actually work in the real world.

A Lucerne experience that stays with you

COEUR is not simply about winning an award. It is about learning how to arrive in a room full of strangers and leave with collaborators, ideas and a clearer sense of what professional international work demands.

Athina, part of the BHMS hosting team, understood that journey personally:

“Hosting COEUR in Lucerne was a real full-circle moment for me. Last year, I took part in the programme in Scotland as a student, and this year I had the opportunity to experience it from the other side as a host at BHMS. It was a pleasure to welcome 39 students from different countries to Lucerne and watch them arrive as individuals, then within only a few days become international teams working towards a shared goal.”

That transformation is the point.

At BHMS, students learn in Switzerland’s highly organised, internationally connected environment—then apply that learning in situations where ideas must stand up to scrutiny. COEUR 22 showed what can happen when curiosity meets discipline, when cultural differences become an advantage, and when an idea is pushed beyond the classroom.

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