Innovative ideas with impact at the Social Start-up Summer School 2024

14 motivated participants worked intensively for a week in four teams on their innovative concepts. What all the ideas had in common was that they wanted to provide a social benefit as well as an economic one. "Sustainability has become an increasingly relevant topic. Not only ecological, but also social problems require long-term solutions. This is why the participants at this year's Social Start-up Summer School also explicitly addressed problems in our society," explains Christoph Krieger, start-up consultant at Start-up-Manufaktur, the start-up centre at Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg.

Under the guidance of an experienced coach, knowledge was imparted on how to go from an idea to an effective business model. Over the course of the week, the target group was defined, interviews were conducted with potential customers and initial prototypes were created. On the last day of the summer school, the teams were finally able to present the business models they had developed in a short pitch in front of a panel of experts and receive valuable feedback.

"It was also great to see the different areas from which the inspiration for the ideas came: Be it from their studies, their jobs or even their private lives," explains Marcus Wille, start-up consultant at the Transfer Centre enaCom at the University of Bonn.