Centre for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and SMEs (CENTIM)
Closing event of AWAKE: Women present their start-up ideas
"We know that there is general potential for women to found companies," says Christoph Krieger, start-up consultant and start-up scout at H-BRS. Nevertheless, the majority of university members who have sought advice from him and his colleagues in the Start-up-Manufaktur der H-BRS are male. "We wanted to counteract this imbalance with the programme. And in fact, we learned from some of the participants that they probably wouldn't have even tried to implement their ideas without the programme," says Krieger.
From the idea to the first pitch
The funding programme focused precisely on this early phase of the start-up, in which an initial concept emerges from an idea. For six months, the twelve participants worked intensively on their projects in workshops and individual coaching sessions. In addition, the Start-up-Manufaktur team paired each founder with a mentor. Ten women were also accepted into the EXIST Women scholarship programme and received three months of financial support.
In addition to the mentoring, the women also benefited from the contact with other potential female founders, says scholarship holder Juliane Orth: "The greatest thing for me was getting to know the other women and their visions. It was super inspiring and motivating to meet so many exciting personalities." Orth is a doctoral student and also works as a public relations and marketing officer at the IWK department. In future, she would like to help technology companies find suitable female applicants and inspire them to work in the industry.
Solutions for social problems
In her three-minute pitch, she also touched on her own experiences. As a child, she said she was very interested in a career in technology, but ultimately decided against it because she perceived the industry as male-centred.
Other female founders also focussed on solving social problems. Prevention consultant Sylvia Birska presented a software solution designed to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy in the area of occupational health and safety. Pia Barion, student assistant at the Institute for IT Service, showed how forest fires can be quickly recognised and reported in the future.
The founders still have a lot of work ahead of them before the concepts become companies. However, they have already successfully completed the first phase of their start-up story and have taken the first step towards turning a good idea into reality.
Contact points
Start-up-Manufaktur - Kontakt
Campus
Sankt Augustin
Room
F413 (Campus Sankt Augustin), H306 (Campus Rheinbach)
Opening hours
nach Vereinbarung