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Idea for app handling cruise tourism won The Lehmkuhl-scholarship
Nikoline Valaker and Adna Alibasic's master's thesis is "innovative and aims to solve a practical problem", the committee's states.
Criteria for the scholarship
- The Master's thesis must either be linked to new products/services or to new business models, and must directly or indirectly contribute to innovation and maintain high professional quality.
- Master's theses submitted in the autumn semester of the previous year or in the spring semester of the same year that NHH awards the scholarship, can be nominated.
- Business ideas launched in other ways than in master's theses can also be nominated. It is not a requirement that the ideas that are launched must be put into practice.
During the annual Lehmkuhl lecture, the Lehmkuhl scholarship is also awarded to selected students or recent alumni.
This year Nikoline Valaker and Adna Alibasic reached the very top with their thesis on innovation in cruise tourism.
'It was very surprising and nice', says Valaker.
The two former students have created the basis for an app that aims to counteract the accumulation of crowds in connection with cruise tourism in Bergen.
The intended app aims to create personalized itineraries that will distribute tourists more evenly across the cityscape.
The scholarship of NOK 50,000 is given to current or recently graduated students who have shown special abilities that can promote Norwegian business in the fields of innovation and/or entrepreneurship.
As a general rule, the scholarship must be linked to a master's thesis in the same field.
still working together
The committee's assessment
This year’s winner thesis uses advanced methods to contribute to the solution of a very practical problem. Its point of departure is the congestion that often appears in Bergen when several cruise ships visit the city simultaneously and a large number of cruise tourists have a short period of time to experience the main attractions of the city. To reduce such congestion, the winners propose an app that aims at creating personal itineraries for visitors, thus distributing them more evenly across the city and enhancing their experience by aligning with their individual preferences.
The app should include sufficient information for the tourists to make a well-informed choice based on their own preferences, as well as the time they have available in Bergen. The winners have done a significant job in mapping and classifying various attractions, finding relevant information and assessments, geolocating the sites, taking capacity constraints for the various attractions into account, adding information about restaurants and cafes, calculating walking distances between sites, etc, as a background for creating individual schedules and plans for the visitors.
The thesis is innovative in several ways. Even if the problem is seemingly simple, it is in fact not easy to formulate and solve a workable model that can be scaled up to the number of cruise tourists Bergen could have on a busy day. The winners show great command of various modelling options; they demonstrate the need to go beyond standard models and suggest meaningful modelling choices and simplifications for such an app to be applicable in practice.
There is no doubt that this thesis lays the theoretical and practical foundations for an actual app to be developed to help reduce congestion of cruise tourists in Bergen as well as enhance the experience of the individual visitors. It addresses a real challenge, acknowledged by the relevant authorities, and interested parties should be encouraged to further develop and implement such a solution, in cooperation with the winning students.
Valaker and Alibasic both work as data- and AI-consultants in the Oslo-based company Twoday.
Half a year has passed since they submitted the now award-winning master's thesis. During the process, they encountered several challenges:
'We realized quite quickly that the task was much more technical than we thought and actually had the expertise for. Among other things, we had to replace the model', explains Alibasic.
Despite a steep learning curve, they got there in the end. But will they make the app they've formed the foundation for?
'We have no immediate plans for that now', says Valaker.
'But if the opportunity presents itself', we are very open to it, adds Alibasic.
Honored by the comittee
Because business is in a phase of change, it is extremely important to make NHH students better at creating new businesses or help others to grow new businesses.
In other words, the purpose of the Lehmkuhl scholarship is to support NHH's investment in innovation and entrepreneurship.
In its justification for this year's award, the committee points out that the master's thesis, A Mixed Linear Programming Model for Allocating Cruise Tourists in Bergen City Centre, is innovative and aims to solve a practical problem:
'There is no doubt that this thesis lays the theoretical and practical foundations for an actual app to be developed to help reduce congestion of cruise tourists in Bergen as well as enhance the experience of the individual visitors. It addresses a real challenge, acknowledged by the relevant authorities, and interested parties should be encouraged to further develop and implement such a solution, in cooperation with the winning students.'
Read the full justification in the fact box.
Valaker and Alibasic submitted the thesis in the spring of 2023. They have been supervised by PhD Candidta Andres Velez and professor Stein W. Wallace at the Department of Business and Management Science.
The committee consists of Professor and Vice Rector for research Malin Arve, Professor Jan I. Haaland, Head of the Department of Finance, Aksel Mjøs and Professor Bram Timmermans.
Kristofer Lehmkuhl's fund for the promotion of Norwegian business was established on May 1. 1920.
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