"All ideas were really convincing" - Review of the AWAKE Demo Night

Prior to the Demo Night, eight teams had already qualified for the final Demo Night as part of the StartUp course "Awake". These included: Judgy, Shoppu, EmbedIot.io, Clustron.io, Naturemate, Sat:io, Palatium & Lycentia. They now had the opportunity to pitch their idea in front of an audience of about 150 attendees & four jury members at the Demo Night.

Part of the jury were Franziska Heyde (UnternehmerTUM), Prof. Dr. Ing. Ralf Takors (Institute of Biochemical Engineering), Prof. Dr. Roland Kontermann (Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology), Andree Ohmstedt (former Mercedes-Benz Bank AG) and Gabriele Erhardt (GSaME). After a short introduction of the program and various topics covered at the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Science, the pitches were started. Each team had the opportunity to present their idea for three minutes and then had to withstand critical questions from the jury for another three minutes.

After a number of exciting and very different pitches on topics such as: "Data protection through blockchain" (Lycentia) or "age-appropriate, self-determined living" (Palatium), the audience had the opportunity to vote for their favorite of the evening and thus determine the winner of the audience award (500€). In the meantime, the jury deliberated to determine the winner of the Jury Prize (1000€), which this year was donated by Acitoflux.

After exciting minutes of ambiguity and a guest lecture by Eric Heintze on the topic "Opportunities & offers for people interested in founding a company at the University of Stuttgart", the winners were determined: the audience award (500€) went to the team Sat:io, which deals with the use of satellite capacities.

The announcement was made by Andree Ohmstedt: "The feeling of the jury was also reflected in the audience: it was a very, very tough head-to-head race for the audience award." At the same moment, he also confirmed the value of all the ideas: "All the ideas were really convincing, none of them were "no good". [...] That's why all the ideas I heard should go on."

The winner of the jury prize was announced afterwards by Mika Mänz (Acitoflux). The audience decided on the team Naturemate, which deals with regional, sustainable environmental actions. The decision criteria focused on innovation, applicability and sustainability of the ideas. After the award ceremony, the event ended with a round of interviews with the winners, who described their positive experiences & lessons learned during the course.

The event was organized as part of the key qualification "AWAKE- Become a startup in six weeks", which focuses on a basic understanding of the topic of "entrepreneurship" and raising awareness in this regard.

Text: Marcel Scharmach