Looking back at WRO 2022 in Dortmund, Germany

WRO 2022 took place at the Messe Dortmund exhibition centre in Dortmund, next to the Signal Iduna Park, home of the Borussia Dortmund soccer team. German National Organizer, TECHNIK BEGEISTERT, had originally submitted a bid to host an international final in 2016. So this was an event that had been many years in the making.

WRO has been running in Germany since 2009 and TECHNIK BEGEISTERT was established in 2012 to manage the competition, growing the programme to 700 teams and from 2 regional events to 40 in a season. As they worked with more partners and volunteers the German WRO community felt that they would like to host an International Final. Not only for the honour of doing so but also for the opportunity it presented to grow WRO in Germany in a sustainable fashion. Part of the WRO 2022 budget was for sustainability activities which included engaging 80 new schools with equipment and teacher training, six new regional competitions in parts of Germany that had not previously participated. And at the International Final, an associated STEM activity programme to attract visitors from the public and schools.

Fundamental to the success of the Final was the army of volunteers from around the country that were involved before and during the event. The majority of these volunteers were from the partners or were former coaches and participants. Their commitment to WRO continues as many of them will remain with the programme to help grow WRO.The volunteers also came up with the idea and led on the delivery of the live streaming as a way of sharing what was going on with our global community. To maintain the interest over three days required a lot of content including interviews, pre-produced videos, live footage and commentary, all of which is now a souvenir of the event that is still available on YouTube.

The event itself was a huge success, despite some of the residual challenges of the pandemic and the impacts of the global financial problems and conflicts. In fact, surveys show it was the best rated WRO International Final in the history of WRO. Markus Fleige, President of TECHNIK BEGEISTERT, says: “It has been a pleasure hosting WRO 2022, the first live international final in three years! We were glad to have more than 70 countries visiting Dortmund and I want to thank all of our almost 300 volunteers from Germany and abroad who made this event possible”.

For a glimpse of the excitement at WRO 2022 you can view the official recap video below.