These are:
1st place: Antonia van Schwamen and Leah Freyberg are planning ‘Vividules’, a property boundary that provides a habitat for insects.
2nd place: Ropafadzo Matuzula aims to make it easier for international students to set up their own households – and thus get started with life in Germany – with the ‘Kutsva’ university starter kit.
3rd place: Vignesh Gandham from ‘Bioticens’ has developed a method for converting organic waste into protein-rich animal feed using insects.
‘Vividules’ voted
the best idea The best ideas often come to us in everyday life. That was certainly the case for Antonia van Schwamen. Whilst training at the gym, the Biological Resources student looked up at a plain, grey concrete wall. “There must be a nicer way,” thought the 27-year-old. “The holes in the wall immediately reminded me of an insect hotel.” Shortly afterwards, she told her fellow student Leah Freyberg about the idea, and Leah was immediately enthusiastic.
Vividules are living walls designed to serve as an alternative to traditional walls and fences, providing habitat and a food source for various animal and plant species. What makes them unique is the option for modular, customised design of the walls. The individual modules can, for example, be used as insect houses or for various types of planting. As well as providing a habitat for insects, the design also tackles other barriers faced by animals: hedgehogs can easily cross property boundaries via small tunnels, and birds and bats are also expected to find food here.
By taking part in the twelve-week StartGlocal Academy, the two students were able to further develop their idea: “We are delighted with the win and the opportunity to take part in the StartGlocal Academy. Thanks to the wide range of workshops, such as market analysis and intellectual property rights, we were able to acquire the skills we need as future entrepreneurs. We also found the regular exchanges with the other participants particularly valuable,” said Leah Freyberg.
Alongside their Master’s thesis, the next step for the two students is to build an initial prototype in the FabLab at Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences.
Thanks to the
support associations The university and the StartGlocal team would like to thank all StartGlocal Academy participants, mentors and experts. Special thanks go to the three supporting associations – Campus Cleve e.V., Campus Camp-Lintfort e.V. and the Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences Support Association – for serving on the jury at DemoDay Pitch Batch #3. To mark the successful conclusion of the Academy, the Campus Cleve e.V. Friends’ Association is donating a tree for the GlocalForest, which will be planted in the show garden on the Kleve campus.
StartGlocal – Global Spirit for Local Start-ups
The ‘StartGlocal – Global Spirit for Local Start-ups’ project has been funded since April 2020 as part of the EXIST programme by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the European Social Fund. Sustainability is the project team’s top priority: for every milestone reached in the project, a tree will be planted as part of a ‘StartGlocal Forest’. “The issue of sustainability is of great importance in our StartGlocal project. It is very important to us to establish the university as an innovation partner for sustainability issues in the region, whilst at the same time involving and supporting our students,” said Dr Gerhard Heusipp, Head of the Centre for Research, Innovation and Transfer at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences.
StartGlocal Academy
The StartGlocal Academy took place for the third time in the 2021/2022 winter semester. As part of this workshop programme run by the StartGlocal project, university students interested in setting up a business were given the opportunity during the winter semester to acquire the basic know-how required to launch a start-up.
In an interactive learning environment, the students were supported by experts and mentors from the start-up and entrepreneurship sectors. Across twelve sequential online workshops and tutorials, participants were taught all the key skills and processes essential for a start-up, including idea generation, business models, prototyping and, on a practical level, the legal and tax aspects of running a business. ‘Demo Day’ is the closing event of the StartGlocal Academy, at which all participants present their start-up ideas to a jury, which selects the winners.
The “StartGlocal” project is funded by:
