Friday, September 13, 2024 - a lucky day for a founding team at HFT. Why? It was awarded 3rd place in the “Stuttgart Region University Prize” for the most innovative university start-up. The award ceremony took place in Stuttgart City Hall. The prize is sponsored by Wirtschaftsförderung Region Stuttgart GmbH (WRS).
Marvin Wickert, one of the founders of Evergrow Elements, presented the start-up's idea and vision in a live pitch. Evergrow Elements relies on the rewetting of moors and produces a building material called Typhaboard from the cattail raw material that can be obtained in this way. This is highly competitive with conventional building materials. The start-up's clear focus is on environmental friendliness and resource conservation in a circular economy - this convinced the jury and they were awarded 3rd place in the competition with prize money of 500 euros. The Evergrow Elements team is currently receiving the "Young Innovators" scholarship from the state of Baden-Württemberg.
PVision (HdM Stuttgart), who are working on a drone-based software solution for detecting damage to PV systems, took first place in the competition with prize money of 3000 euros. They are currently being supported by an EXIST start-up grant.
Enerlace - a start-up team made up of graduates from the University of Stuttgart and the HdM, which is currently also receiving a Young Innovators grant from the University of Stuttgart - came in second place with prize money of 2,000 euros. Enerlace uses a web application to automate the monitoring of wind lidar data, saving time and helping to scale wind farm development projects.
The EXIST-funded start-up Bloom (HdM) was delighted to receive 500 euros for fourth place. "Bloom" is a digital job search assistant for school students to help them choose a career and study program. The specially developed AI communicates with the students using speech to identify their skills, needs and interests and find more suitable job and study offers.
We congratulate all the teams on their wins and look forward to supporting the entire Evergrow Elements team on their future journey!
The university prize is sponsored by Wirtschaftsförderung der Region Stuttgart GmbH and was launched in 2022 with the NXTGN innovation network. It is organized by Start-up Campus 0711, the start-up network of Stuttgart's universities. The partner and host of the award ceremony is the Economic Development Agency of the City of Stuttgart. Start-ups that have not yet been founded can apply for the award. The founding team must include at least one student from one of the universities in the Stuttgart Campus Region or a graduate who graduated no more than five years ago. The winners are selected by a jury consisting of mentors from the universities and representatives of the partners WRS, NXTGN and Wirtschaftsförderung Stadt Stuttgart.
