PlanBee's founding team is the winner of this year's business plan competition ideenReich. The team of six students from Passau is about to simplify beekeeping for young beekeepers. By means of a sensor-supported beehive, the team provides beekeepers with a personal beehive coach via app, which allows them to monitor their beehive at any time. The system gives the user recommendations for action in order to avoid unnecessary or even incorrect interventions in the hive and to promote the health of the bees in the long term.
The idea of PlanBee came from one of the founders, Gero Camp, who bought his own bees in his hometown, far away from Passau. Due to this distance he had the idea how pleasant it would be to be informed about the general condition of the bees and the beehive even if he is not there.
This topic is of high relevance, since in many other areas of agriculture enormous digitization is being done, but in beekeeping there is none. The collected sensor data allows the beekeeper to gather and view information about the current status of the bees and allows to intervene only when needed. "Because every external intervention means stress for the entire bee colony, which can be reduced enormously by our startup idea", Gero Camp, cofounder of PlanBee.
Technically, the digitized beehive should work as follows: PlanBee wants to install a small computer in every beehive which transfers data into a database. There, the data is processed and evaluated. Based on the evaluation the system generates recommendations what to do, for example when it is the optimal time to harvest honey. "The more sensors we install, the more we can track. We hope that we will then be able to give even better and additional guidance", Micha Günther, cofounder PlanBee.
A present challenge for the team is to find the right focus as numerous factors contribute to the optimal keeping and care of bee colonies. Thus, it is important for the team to get an idea of what are the most helpful recommendation for a beekeeper and which information is therefore needed. "At this point the Honors Degree Program of the University Passau is very helpful for us", Gero Camp. PlanBee once startet with the presentation of ist idea in the DTE Ideation Weekend, where the original team got great support from new team members. Specifically, the weekend allowed the team to bring together different (and new) comptencies which helped it tremendeously in advancing its business idea.
The next step of the team is to adapt their prototype to the needs of beekepers and verify the compliance with the technical possibilities given. Step-by-step they are working on their business idea and at the same time pursue their hobbies, doing something good for nature.
Congratulations once again!