Pforzheim Student Team Mentored by ZEW Triumphs at 2018 YES! Final

“High Five”, the project developed by the Fritz-Erler-Schule from Pforzheim impressed the audience at the final of the high school competition YES! – Young Economic Summit in Hamburg and won the vote for the best solution at this year’s competition. The student team was assisted by Holger Stichnoth, deputy head of the Research Department “Social Policy and Redistribution”at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim. As in the previous year, a team mentored by ZEW distinguished itself from all student teams in the Germany-wide competition.

In the past six months, the student teams have worked together with ZEW and other renowned economic research institutes in Germany to come up with creative and innovative solutions to economic issues. At the final of the fifth student competition YES! – Young Economic Summit at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, more than 200 students presented their solutions to various economic issues. After the presentations and discussions with the experts from the fields of science, economics and politics, the students voted for the best solutions. This year, one idea was able to win the most votes from their fellow students: the innovative concept “High Five” developed by the Pforzheim student team, which was mentored by ZEW.

Innovative proposal for more social participation among children and young people

The aim of this project is to ensure equal access for young people to social activities in the areas of education, leisure, culture, health and family support – regardless of their social and economic background. “The enthusiastic student team from Pforzheim was focused and worked passionately to create an innovative solution to promote more social participation among children and young people. I am greatly impressed by their achievement, and I have learned much from this experience,” says ZEW economist Holger Stichnoth, who mentored the student team.

On 4 April 2019, the winning team - namely Antonia Becker-Cosoveanu, Isabell Faaß, Leandro Cerqueira Karst, Monica Alessi, and Rebecca Waschtschenko - will attend an official award ceremony at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in Berlin, which is the patron of the YES! competition. In the 2017 competition, ZEW economists had mentored the student team from the BBS Wirtschaft 1 Ludwigshafen, who came top in the vote with their idea for supporting start-ups.

About YES!

YES! – Young Economic Summit is one of the biggest high school competitions in Germany looking at issues affecting the future of our world. It falls under the patronage of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. YES! is a joint project of the German National Library of Economics (ZBW) – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics and the Joachim Herz Stiftung. Over the course of a six-month mentoring programme, teams of high school students – divided into four different regions – will come up with their own solutions to key issues likely to face our society in the near future. Researchers from various Leibniz institutions are supporting the students by providing their scientific expertise. Since encouraging young researchers is a key concern of ZEW, our research staff were all in agreement that the institute should continue to support the competition in the Southwest region in 2019. Next year the YES! competition will be expanded once more to give students from all across Germany the chance to take part in the competition.

For further information please contact:

Dr. Daniela Heimberger , Phone +49 (0)621/1235-109, E-Mail daniela.heimberger@zew.de