The Startup Port Campus Pitch took place for the first time as part of Female Entrepreneurship Week. In this new and unusual pitch format, eight teams from Hamburg universities and research institutions competed against each other in the Forum Finkenau at HAW Hamburg to convince the audience and a six-member, all-female jury of their ideas. In the end, the winner was a project from the Helmholtz Centre Hereon, which aims to produce a substitute for palm oil from coffee waste.
The Startup Port Campus Pitch was not only about innovative ideas, but also about innovative forms of presentation. Startup MyUrn from HAW Hamburg presented an urn made from mushroom mycelium, a versatile material with potential in food production. Ben Müller impressed with his original pitch for the Deep Study learning app from the University of Hamburg, a mixture of rap and poetry slam. Impact3D from Leuphana, not yet officially founded, focused on environmental pollution, in particular the recycling of plastic waste on the Elbe beach. VisualMINT from TU Hamburg, funded by IFB Innovationsstarter GmbH, presented an idea for improving electrical engineering experiments using augmented reality. Open, also sponsored by IFB, is developing an app to provide an overview of events. In the field of medical technology, Accelerated Muscle Technologies (AMB) from DESY is working on recording and analysing muscle data relevant to heart disease and sport. Presada from Hamburg Innovation presented an AI tool for audience-orientated presentations to increase attention during lectures.
With so many good ideas, it was not easy to choose the best one. The decision was correspondingly close, with only one or two votes separating the first four places. In the end, RecovLabs was the most convincing. Colombian-born microbiologist Natalia Tarazona from the Helmholtz Centre Hereon described the beauty of the rainforests in her home country and the many threats they face, not least from palm oil plantations. She presented a high-quality substitute for palm oil, which can be produced from coffee residues and is suitable for the cosmetics industry, for example, to the eager audience. A sample of her new type of oil went through the audience and was met with enthusiasm. No wonder Recovlabs came first in the evening’s voting and was delighted to receive 500 euros in prize money from Tempowerk – presented by Managing Director Christoph Birkel. It was an exciting and relaxed evening!
We would like to thank everyone who contributed to this event! Special thanks go to: Franziska Pohlmann (moderator), our jurors (Heidrun Twesten, Dörte Bunge, @Prof. Marlene-Anne Dettmann, Alisa Möhrke, Veronika Reichboth, Wienke Reynolds), the GründungsService of HAW Hamburg and TEMPOWERK HAMBURG for sponsoring the prize money!
