Dirk Wiese, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, honored the winners of the "Start-up Competition - Digital Innovations" at the IFA in Berlin. Munich-based startups were also among the winners.
Since 2016, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has supported innovative business ideas based on modern information and communication technologies with this competition. This year's IFA trade fair will focus on the theme of "Consumer Electronics Unlimited" and will take place from September 1 to 6, 2017, in Berlin.
Wiese is happy about female founders
Dirk Wiese:
"Innovative digital technologies are opening up new business models and markets across industries – the participants in the 'Start-up Competition – Digital Innovations' have proven this once again. (...) I am inspired by the ideas of the founding teams, and I warmly congratulate all the winners on their awards. I am particularly pleased that there are more and more female participants and award winners. This shows that starting a business is becoming increasingly attractive to women. And our efforts to reach more women through the start-up competition and harness their potential for the startups of tomorrow are proving successful."
The startup competition takes place twice a year. 293 startup teams comprising 723 founders participated in the first round in 2017. Six teams won main prizes of €32,000 each, one team was awarded the special "FinTech" prize of €10,000, and 13 additional teams received prizes of €7,000 each. Additionally, all winning teams will receive individual coaching and mentoring. Among the award-winning startup teams are innovative Munich companies:
rfrnz and Hawa Dawa honored at Digital Innovations startup competition
The company rfrnz has developed an analysis system for lawyers that automatically reviews and evaluates legal contracts. The founding team Hawa Dawa measures air quality in cities using a spatially distributed network of sensors and visualizes it on easy-to-understand maps. The data is used for traffic and urban planning. In addition to these two main prize winners from the Isar, inveox and neolexon from the Bavarian capital was honored as the winner.
Entrants have until October 4, 2017, to enter the current, new competition round. This time, the special prize will be awarded to a startup idea related to Industry 4.0.
