Videos

Societal enterprises, working on alleviating societal issues such as poverty, exclusion, and pollution, face many challenges. "They are often unrecognized, unsupported, and undervalued", says Stefan Chichevaliev (VUB). He is investigating how the current business environment affects the day-to-day operation of social enterprises. His goal is to identify what is needed to help these enterprises meet these challenges, to the benefit of the most vulnerable.

Do you remember baby Pia? She suffered from the rare muscle disease AMS and the medicine to save her cost a whopping €1.9 million. If you were the Minister of Health, would you pay for Pia's medicine? Even if that meant there was no budget left for another medicine that might save 100 people?

In 2008 banks took too many risks and lied about their true condition. Their collapse led to a worldwide financial crisis, that had a huge impact on society. You may think that everything is better now, but is it? Or do banks only look safer than they really are? That's what Elizaveta Sizova (KU Leuven) is investigating, in order to assess bank risk.

Too often, companies take too little account of the environmental impact of these inventions when developing new products. Gwenny Thomassen wants to change this: she developed a model to calculate both the cost price and the impact on the environment for products based on micro-algae.

Did you know that your supermarket has a 'psychic' on the payroll? Well not exactly, but they have a forecaster, someone in charge of predicting future sales so your supermarket doesn't run out of stock. A very challenging task. Luckily the forecaster can count on software for help. Shari De Baets looks at how forecasters and computers can work together to make sure their predictions are accurate and customers are served and satisfied.

As an entrepreneur it is quite a task to find investors. Through so-called pitching events they can present their company to a group of investors in the hope of convincing them to financially support their project. Zoë Imhof investigates how entrepreneurs are most likely to effectively attract investors and keep them on board.