Since 2018, Referat für Arbeit und Wirtschaft has been conducting the city's innovation competition. Students and entrepreneurs develop solutions to specific challenges and tasks facing Munich's city administration. The teams with the most compelling ideas receive innovation prizes and are allowed to further develop their concepts together with the city administration and test them in practice.
The awards ceremony took place at a celebratory event at the Munich Urban Colab. City Councillor Ursula Harper welcomed the guests on behalf of the mayor. Dominik Krause. The patron of the event sent greetings:
"Munich is one of Germany's most innovative business locations. This positive development is being driven by its outstanding universities and colleges, a thriving startup scene, and a social climate that attracts creative minds from all over the world. As the state capital of Munich, we want to harness this innovative power to further develop our administration with smart solutions and improve services for our citizens."
The following five teams were able to secure one of the innovation awards:
Sky Eye: Improving the data on stationary traffic
On average, a private car is only used for one hour a day. This means that 96 percent of the time the car sits unused, blocking valuable public space. Until now, measuring and evaluating so-called stationary traffic – the technical term for parked vehicles – has been very complex. In order to develop tailored measures for stationary traffic, the Mobility Department therefore sought simpler and faster analysis methods. The Sky Eye team offers an AI-based plugin that can recognize and categorize vehicles in both public and private spaces. It evaluates publicly available geodata and displays parking space occupancy with high precision. The jury was particularly impressed by Sky Eye's open and transparent open source approach.
Door to door: Digital Welcome Center
Munich is growing steadily, and new residents need relevant information for a successful start. Currently, gathering information independently is difficult, as it must be gathered from various sources. Consequently, new residents often contact administrative staff, who in many cases face similar challenges. The District Administration Department sought a solution to facilitate information gathering for newcomers and administrative staff. The innovation award went to the startup. Door to door – digital factory with the MIA (Munich Information Assistant) project. MIA is a chatbot-like software interface that searches trusted data sources and builds on the already established Integreat app.
Workinger: Job and recruiting compass for international newcomers
The labor shortage in Munich is hitting many sectors hard. At the same time, the integration of people with a refugee or migration background into the labor market is hampered by legal and bureaucratic hurdles. With its challenge, the Referat für Arbeit und Wirtschaft therefore pursued the goal of developing an AI-based, multilingual app that would facilitate access to the Munich labor market. The startup Workinger received one of the innovation awards for its application that supports SMEs in their search for skilled tradespeople. Using digital tools and AI, the startup conducts pre-qualification and matching. The jury particularly praised Workinger for enabling newcomers to prepare for the local labor market even before their arrival.
UTurn mobility transition: U-turn for a sustainable lifestyle
Mobility is crucial in the fight against climate change, but it also requires a change in everyday behavior. The Department of Climate and Environmental Protection therefore sought a tool to promote energy-efficient mobility routines. The UTurn Mobility Transition team developed an approach to playfully change mobility behavior. A specially developed bridge is intended to help citizens critically examine their behavior and find creative alternatives. The tool can also be used in other areas such as nutrition, consumption, or energy to promote a sustainable lifestyle.
SE3 Labs: Routing for footpaths in the shade
Redesigning public spaces to protect pedestrians from the heat is complex. The municipal department therefore aims to contribute to heat protection through smart optimization of sidewalks. A target-group-specific solution for heat-sensitive pedestrians is particularly important, with shade and cooling green spaces playing a key role. The geodata service hoped that the innovation competition would result in advanced route planning based on data from Munich's Digital Twin. This provided SE3 Labs with the “SpatialGPT Urban Shade Guide,” which navigates pedestrians along cool routes and also integrates real-time data on construction sites and barrier-free paths.
Innovation Awards: What's next
The winning teams will now have the opportunity to further develop and test their proposed solutions in a co-creation phase with the city administration. In addition to the €10,000 prize money, a budget of up to €15,000 is available for the implementation phase. This year's innovation competition is also linked to the EU flagship project "Creating NEBourhoods Together," which offers urban test fields in Neuperlach. In addition, the prize winners will receive access to selected offerings from the city's innovation competition partners. UnternehmerTUM, the Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship, the LMU Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center, the start-up center founders@unibw as well as the Start2 Group are there to support you.
The next round of the competition will be announced in spring 2025. Interested parties can already apply at the website Register to automatically receive all information about the start of the tender.
