---
title: "Your brief. An international team. Nine months."
description: "Partner with SUGAR: a nine-month design thinking project with an international team of master students. Field research, prototypes, talent scouting."
url: "https://www.sugar-network.org/en/partner-with-us/"
lang: "en"
---

# Your brief. An international team. Nine months.

An international team of master students works on your challenge for a full academic year, from field research to a tested prototype.

## Research, prototypes, people, network

Four things you take home after one academic year with a SUGAR team.

1. **Field research** – Students interview and test your target users, often in regions hard for you to reach. You receive all findings compactly.
2. **Global innovation projects** – Insights from an international team, a final prototype or proof of concept, and optional training for your employees.
3. **Talent scouting** – Master students with nine months of design thinking practice. Many continue the project at the partner or found a startup.
4. **The largest corporate-academic community** – Global players, hidden champions, SMEs and NGOs. Partners meet each other at SUGAR and SUGAR+ events.

### What the team delivers in June

A final prototype or proof of concept, plus documentation of the whole design process: user research, evaluations, benchmarks and specifications.

## Your part

You set the problem statement and meet your team at four milestones. Teams get a real budget for prototypes from you.

- **Oct:** Meet your team at the start of the year.
- **Dec:** First milestone: your team presents its findings.
- **Mar:** Second milestone: you see tested prototypes.
- **Jun:** You receive the final prototype or proof of concept.

[Full timeline](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/program/#timeline)

Christine Thong explains the partner's role in a short video. [Watch the videos](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/about/#video-christine-thong)

## Global players, hidden champions, NGOs

The organisations behind the projects in our archive.

15 partners came back for another brief.
[All partners (74)](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/network/#partners)

### Projects that became startups

Some teams kept going after the Expo and founded a company from their prototype.

- https://audisphere.webflow.io/audi-mobility/audiunite
- http://getyourhero.com/#/
- https://vimcar.de/
- https://www.mimi.io/
- https://www.proglove.de/
- https://prottapp.com/
- https://www.waytob.com/
- https://miira.ch/

## What partners say

> It’s always very inspirational to work with students. They have a fresh mind and they bring new ideas.
>
> — Anja Zimmermann, Innovation Manager @ Helvetia Versicherungen Schweiz

> The students bring fresh crazy ideas and out off the box thinking to our traditional insurance culture.
>
> — Flurina Hammer, Innovation Manager at Generali

> The research can be valuable for many parts of the business. Students give us an outside view with new insights.
>
> — Andrea Overthun, Director, DS & C Technical Ecosystem & Developers, IBM

> The project has uncovered an interesting potential new business field for GF piping Systems.
>
> — Dominik Scherer, Head of Global Product Management at GF Piping Systems

## Bring a brief for the next cohort

Tell us about your challenge. We match it with a student team for the cohort starting in October.

Your contact: Prof. Dr. Falk Uebernickel, Co-chair of the network
E-mail: contact@sugar-network.org