Henkel's student competition to kick off

For the seventh time, Henkel calls on students from all over the world to submit their visionary ideas and concepts for new Henkel products and technologies. Under the slogan “Create, learn, grow”, student teams from a total of 30 countries are invited to submit their innovative and sustainable ideas by December 11, 2013 at: www.henkelchallenge.com. A special focus will be on countries in emerging markets such as Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia. 

Developing a visionary product or a new technology for one of the three Henkel business sectors – Beauty Care, Laundry & Home Care or Adhesive Technologies – is the main aim of the “Henkel Innovation Challenge”. Registering in teams of two, students from a wide variety of disciplines will adopt the role of creative, sustainability-aware business development managers. Once they have registered, each team will be given access to professional e-learning information that is also part of Henkel’s internal Learning Management programme. 

All teams that qualify for the semi-final are assigned an experienced Henkel manager, who acts as a mentor, advising the participants on further developing their innovative concepts. This allows the young visionaries to gain priceless, wide-ranging business experience and a detailed insight into the company. At the same time, the students have the opportunity to establish an invaluable personal contact with managers at Henkel. 

“The Henkel Innovation Challenge allows us to meet top talents from around the world. Within this contest we are placing a particular focus on the emerging markets where we want to increase the number of employees to a total of 60 percent by 2016. A competition like the Henkel Innovation Challenge helps us to increase the employer attractiveness of Henkel for the major target group of students in the markets relevant to us”, said Jens Plinke, head of corporate employer branding at Henkel.