Students brainstorm problems against the clock at 24-hour Tsinghua Sustainable Development Goals Open Hack event, Xing Wen reports.

Finding ways to improve time management, to make better use of the day's 24-hour cycle, has been a hot topic for millennia.

Indeed, a century ago, British novelist Arnold Bennett offered practical advice on how to enhance the quality of life via better time management in the book How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.

Demands on our time have increased dramatically since then. This month, more than 500 participants of the Tsinghua Sustainable Development Goals Open Hack tried to come up with ideas to boost human health and product sustainability during a 24-hour brainstorm.

The event was held by Tsinghua University's Center for Global Competence Development and its x-lab, a university-based platform designed to foster student innovation and entrepreneurship.

It covered such fields as health, agroecology, future energy supplies, intercultural communication and environmental protection.

More than 500 students from two high schools and 48 universities, including Peking University, Communication University of China, Renmin University of China and Wuhan University, took part in the open hack.

Issues were tackled collaboratively, targeting a problem, and after a day, suggestions were presented in front of professors and representatives from major Chinese ride-hailing service provider Didi Chuxing, the BMW Group and other enterprises.

Three participants won a one-week trip to Geneva, Switzerland.

Shan Sisi, 27, a doctoral candidate at Tsinghua University's School of Medicine, was among them.