A total of 38 startup projects competed for the High Jump Awards this year. Teams from Ingolstadt, Munich, and Deggendorf ultimately won.
The Hochsprung Awards honor the best startup projects inspired by courses at Bavarian universities. Hochsprung Project Manager Verena Mechau says:
"The range of submissions and courses, from traditional entrepreneurship events to physics lectures, once again demonstrated the diversity of the Bavarian university startup culture."
High Jump Awards for Smart Mirrors, Data Analysis and Water Desalination
First place and the prize money of €2,500 go to the Ingolstadt-based startup Mirrads. This company develops so-called smart mirrors—mirrors that can be used to display digital advertising using a hologram effect. They have combined this technology with a corresponding business model for advertising clients. The idea originated during Prof. Dr. Martin Bader's "Innovation Management" seminar at the Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences.
Second place and a prize money of 1,500 euros go to the startup in Munich Insight Perspective Technologies (IPT)The spin-off from the Technical University of Munich has developed software that calculates optimal settings for robots and production systems, thereby reducing rework and waste. The start-up project was inspired by Dr. Torsten Enßlin's lecture on "Information Field Theory" at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Third place and a prize of €1,000 went to the startup project Aquaba. Inspired by Prof. Dr. Robert Mnich's "Thermodynamics" lecture at Deggendorf University of Applied Sciences, the team is building a solar desalination plant for the treatment of saline groundwater and seawater in rural areas.
The aim of the competition is to highlight outstanding and innovative concepts and courses that promote entrepreneurship at Bavarian universities and the resulting start-ups. The prize was first awarded in 2015. Since 2018, the Hochsprung Award has alternated annually between "Entrepreneurship Enablers" and "University Startups."
