Collaborative prototyping for a circular outdoor jacket

Collaborative prototyping for a circular outdoor jacket
During the two-day Innovation Sprint you tackle an open question from a company working toward a more circular jacket. You and your team build something tangible. The sprint is part of ASTER, an Interreg Alpine Space project, commissioned by Standortagentur Tirol and run by InnoDays.

Why participate

🧵 Tackle real challenges

Work on questions outdoor companies are wrestling with right now, guided by circular-economy principles.

🧑‍💻 Build skills

Innovation method, sustainability and prototyping — applied over two days, with a playbook that guides each step.

🌐 Connect

Meet peers from other universities and disciplines, company partners and experts from across the Alpine region.

The challenges

Challenge partners frame challenges they hit with their own prototype jacket.

Plastic-free performance

How might we make natural performance the obvious choice for a brand’s next product?

The last jacket

How might we make a jacket more valuable to its wearer in year twenty than in year one?

Fully recyclable zipper

How might we design a zipper that keeps a mono-material polyester jacket recyclable without losing alpine performance?

Felt from textile waste

How might we turn an artisanal felt-making process into a scalable industrial system — and a viable business?

How it works

Two days, one circular jacket.

Mentors

Get support from mentors from our challenge partners and other experts.

One sprint, many places

You start on Day 1 where you study. On Day 2 the locations in Austria and Italy converge into one hub per country. If you can’t travel, stay local or join the shared moments online.

Day 1 · 26 Nov — where you start

Austria West
Innsbruck · Dornbirn · partner institutions

Austria East
Vienna · Graz · Eisenstadt

Italy
Turin · Biella · Bergamo · partner institutions

France · Germany
Grenoble · Rosenheim

Day 2 · 27 Nov — where you meet

Innsbruck
country hub

Eisenstadt
country hub

Turin
country hub

Stays local
connects via Zoom

Questions

Who can take part?

Students and pupils from any discipline — design, textile and materials, engineering, business, environmental technology and more. Interdisciplinary teams work best, and you do not need a background in textiles.

Do I need my own team?

No. Teams are formed before the sprint, during team building after the online kick-off.

What language is the sprint in?

English.

What counts as a prototype?

Anything tangible: a physical mock-up, a digital model, a video, a clickable dummy, a simulation. The point is something people can react to, not a slide deck.

Is there a fee?

Can I join remotely?

Being on site is strongly preferred — the prototyping happens in the workshops. Satellite locations join the streamed parts and run their own programme on site.