Unite!-Start-up-Award
Unite! honors start-ups for the first time
2024/09/02
Unite! meets for the 10th time – and is growing. More members are taking part in the biannual Dialogue, more projects and ideas have emerged and more connections have been made: The Start-up & Innovation Day 2024 (InnoDay24) of the Innovation and Start-up Center HIGHEST at TU Darmstadt concludes the Dialogue and takes the opportunity to also give the start-up scene of the nine partner universities space and to network with each other. For the first time, an international jury of experts will present the Unite! start-up award to the two best start-ups.
In preparation for the Dialogue and the award, the innovation centers of all nine partner universities called on their start-ups to take part. The international expert jury, consists of Unite! representatives and experts from various sectors, reviewed 16 submissions from all nine partners in a two-stage selection process and selected two final start-ups to be invited to the start-up fair in Darmstadt. TU Vice President Innovation and International Affairs Thomas Walther will present the award at the end of the X. Unite! Dialogue.
The winning team will receive a wildcard for the prestigious EY Startup Academy by EY Corporate Solutions: The EY Academy is a six-week program in which selected international start-ups are given the opportunity to improve their business model and its basic building blocks through structured help and advice from EY experts and the Academy network.
The second-placed team will receive a workshop from mentor and keynote speaker Georg Fischer. Both start-ups will also receive travel support and take part in HIGHEST's Start-up & Innovation Day 2024 (InnoDay24).
The expert jury consists of the following members
Georg Fischer, Chief Product Manager at SAP SE and coach, lecturer and speaker for entrepreneurship, design thinking and business model innovation: “It is amazing to engage with such talented and innovative scientists and engineers. Being able to support them in making their ideas become real and successful gives me a lot of hope for the future.”
Gaelle Calvary, Professor at Grenoble INP – UGA and Vice-President for Innovation and Business.
Javier de la Ossa Falero, founder of DraperB1 and consultant for start-ups: “The potential of the technology is there, you just need to find the best team / path.”
Peter Fricke, Associate Director of EMEIA FinTech Business Development: “I strongly believe, the transformational challenges of our time can only be solved in a collaborative and technology-enabled approach and that's exactly what Unite! Is all about and therefore it's my great pleasure to encourage and support the young European entrepreneurs in the great work they are pursuing.”
Philipp Weber, momentum – Lawyer M&A/Venture Capital/Private Equity/Start-ups.
Lisa Ericcson, CEO KTH Innovation and head of the investment arm of KTH Holding. mho