Students' sex app wins regional championship in entrepreneurship

Yesterday, a team of international students from the Design Technology and Business programme at KEA won the regional championships in Entrepreneurship for their app Cherry Pop.

Young people are bad at talking about sex, shows a brand-new study from the Danish Family Planning Association (the DFPA). And last year a study showed that the compulsory sex education in schools simply does not work.

The group behind Cherry Pop knew they wanted to make something that could make a difference as part of the Entrepreneurship module. And that's what's really needed when it comes to informing children and adolescents about sex.

"We talked about where and when we had learned about sex and sexuality ourselves and quickly agreed that it was not at school, but through friends, porn and the media. We think that's an incredible shame," says Madeleine Malling Breen, who along with her five fellow students developed Cherry Pop, which is not only designed to appeal to young people, but also has a number of categories not included in sex education today, such as loving your body, porn versus reality, gender confusion and more.

"We want students to be able to immerse themselves in the universe and learn to be curious on their own. We want to create an open conversation and self-assurance around body, sexuality and self-health by offering teachers and students an easy and fun way to learn about sex education," says Madeleine Malling Breen, who hopes that in a few years they will also be able to offer the app to private individuals so that everyone can learn more about the subject, and that the subject hopefully stops being so taboo.

The platform must answer questions, puncture myths, visualise what is difficult to explain and start conversations.

"Our goal is to provoke thinking and be direct in our way of writing, but with the help of nurses, psychologists and experts in sex and gender, we make sure that we only provide reliable, factually correct and helpful advice. It's important to us that young people have a place where they can get this information so they don't use porn or other unreliable sources as a guide."

Potential to reach the world

"The students are awesome and it is clear that they have a passion for increasing people's self-esteem, self-understanding and helping young people to have a healthy relationship to sex. The group has approached the task with a high level of ambition and it has been great to see their commitment burn through right from the start. The competition held by the Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship is an excellent stepping stone to the further progress of the students, and as the judges highlighted, Cherry Pop is a globally scalable concept," says the students’ teacher Casper Fredriksen. And that's exactly the students' plan.

More than 100 students from the Region of Southern Denmark, Region Zealand and the Capital Region pitched online for the Regional Championships in Entrepreneurship, where the Cherry Pop group won. In the other, the jury was made up of experienced business leaders and entrepreneurs.

In addition to the DKK 10,000 award, Madeleine Malling Breen, Izabela Hetmanowska, Ludmila Zimermanova, Oddur Holm Haraldsson and Ása Valdimarsdóttir will proceed to the Danish Championship in Entrepreneurship, which will be held on 27 May.

Imaginative young people with a focus on global challenges

Innovation and entrepreneurship are not only for business students but for everyone, which was made clear by the wide variety of participants in the Regional Championships where both nursing students, mechanical engineering students and design students participated.

All the students at the Regional Championships are part of the Start Up Programme, which focuses on the young people’s learning and development of entrepreneurial competences. The Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship is behind the Start Up Programme, and the Regional Championship in Entrepreneurship is organised in cooperation with EY (Ernst & Young Global Limited).

Translated into English by Camilla Reslet