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First prize!MEDTIP wins E'Award

Three selected teams with innovative ideas presented their start-ups on the stage of the Innsteg auditorium at the University's second Entrepreneurship Day. The team "MEDTIP" finally emerged as the winner. Osman Nergiz and Constanze Ruesga Rath founded a recruitment agency with their start-up that specialises in advising and supporting medical professionals from Turkey on their way into German working life. The team sees itself not only as an employment agency, but – thanks to the experience gained from studies and research at the University – as an intercultural bridge builder. The Entrepreneurship Award, endowed with 3000 euros and donated by the Neuburger Gesprächskreis e.V., was presented to the team by Dr. Fritz Audebert, Chairman of the Neuburg Discussion Group and CEO and founder of ICUnet.AG. The decision on the award was made by a jury of experienced entrepreneurs from the private sector and representatives of the University. Second place was awarded to the team around Thea Kakavand and Florian Niederhuber from Lesson Organizer", their innovative planning tool for teachers. Third place went to Ferdinand Frank and Christian Teringl, the founders of SPOFERAN GmbH. Their start-up supports even smaller sports clubs, sports organisers and all athletes.

Let's bake it! Gustavo Gusto founder as guest

Founder Christoph Schramm provided exciting start-up insights in his keynote in the main programme. The Passau-based alumnus spoke about his journey as founder of the PADU pizzerias and the pizza brand Gustavo Gusto, the first wood-fired frozen pizza in the market. In the spirit of "do, reflect, adapt", he gave an authentic picture of the ups and downs of developing a start-up company.

My idea! In three minutes

Later in the evening, the audience also had a voice and was allowed to participate in a pitch competition of six start-ups, among others from the programme Honours Degree in Entrepreneurship programme at the university, to vote for their favourites. The winner was the "SmartQuiz" team, who won a coaching session with Bianca Barlow, founder and senior key account manager at Sortlist. All teams from this year's cohort represented their ideas and projects at the fair. Three teams also participated in the pitch competition. One team even took 3rd place and another one from last year's cohort took 2nd place at E’Award.

Learn it! Workshops and guidance

Starting in the morning, there were exciting workshops on how to start a business: Solving social and ecological challenges in an entrepreneurial way were discussed at the workshop "Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation" from the ENACTUS student initiative. Katharina Berres from Mountain Zebra provided basic principles for the start-up process in her workshop "How to start your start-up", in which participants developed a business idea in just a few steps. Experts of the student consultancy INSTEAD guided the workshop "Project Management for Founders" through different phases of founding and showed important tools of project management. Interested visitors were able to take a guided tour of the INN.KUBATOR to find out about support options.

A bit of luck! Happenings at the fair

Accompanying the programme on the main stage was the fair. Here, start-ups presented their developed products and ideas. From multi-dimensional, digital building documentation to – attention, food! – sugar-free date chocolates, there was a lot on offer. There were also people roaming from stand to stand collecting fun facts about the start-ups. This was the only way they could win coveted prizes from the wheel of fortune which attracted visitors in front of the Innsteg Auditorium. At the fair on this sunny day start-up enthusiasts met with mentors and business angels to talk to the start-ups. Company representatives, in turn, took the opportunity to establish contact with new start-up teams and expand their own network.

Want to see more? Here you can also find coverage from NiederbayernTV (0:39 - 5:00 min).