CAMPUSiDEEN 2019 Award Winners

The winners in the categories "Business Idea" and "Business Plan" of the CAMPUSiDEEN start-up competition have been announced. Four of the six winners come from the University of Bremen. The prizes were awarded on September 3, 2019, at a ceremony held at the Chamber of Commerce.

The “Erntewächter” (Harvest Guard), a sensor system for agriculture by Florian und Benjamin Littau (University of Bremen) as well as the comprehensive data analysis tool for offline retailers by metricc consulting (University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven): These are the first two out of six winners in the categories "Business Idea" and "Business Plan" of the CAMPUSiDEEN competition. Three further awards go to the University of Bremen: Moritz Armbrust, Sebastian Mildenberger, Steffen Kirschner, and Marc Gerken of Patavinus came up with the idea to trace the owners of lost items with the aid of software and stickers; Andre Mühlenbrock created the e-learning coding platform CodingPlatform to simplify coding; and Viktoria Theoharova, the founder of HUDDY, manufactures customized and sustainable sweaters.
The winners beat 39 submissions from 98 participants. One third of them are women. This proportion is well above the start-up average of just about 15 percent. "The ideas of the award-winning entrepreneurs offer solutions for pressing challenges. They demonstrate the great potential of start-ups from Bremen universities as an important building block for the future of our economy," says Sarah Thiel, coordinator of CAMPUSiDEEN.

Four Award Winning Projects from the University of Bremen:

The winners in the category "Business Idea", Florian and Benjamin Littau, convinced the jury with their "Erntewächter" (Harvest Guard). Every year, metal objects, stones, and wild animals, hidden in agricultural fields, cause great financial loss or crop failures in agriculture through damage to machines. The Littau brothers – one an electrical engineer, one a physicist – therefore developed the “Erntewächter”, a sensor system that detects foreign bodies in the field and can thus prevent accidents with agricultural machines. In contrast to conventional technologies, the system also detects non-magnetic metals, stones, and wild animals. The prototype is already being developed and there is a great demand.

Patavinus – a startup named after Antonius Patavinus (Anthony of Padua), the patron saint of lost things – realized another idea useful in everyday life. Every day people lose valuables such as keys or wallets that are found by others. However, the way back to their owners often takes time and money. Moritz Armbrust, Sebastian Mildenberger, Steffen Kirschner, and Marc Gerken from the University of Bremen thought it would be much easier if the items could be returned directly and without diversion. Their software Patavinus is supposed to help: Owners can simply label their valuables with a tag or sticker saying "contact owner", which is registered with iOS or Android. Using a QR code, the finders can immediately start an (anonymous) chat with the owners of the lost items and organize the return quickly and easily.

Andre Mühlenbrock wants to simplify programming, which is becoming increasingly important in business and business studies. However, the fact that students often practice programming on their own smartphones or tablets leads to problems due to the large number of different devices and operating systems. Mühlenbrock, a tutor of computer science at the university, has developed CodingPlatform, an e-learning programming platform for programming languages such as Java, C++ and Python. It is especially aimed at schools, vocational schools, and universities, and completely shifts programming to the web. All you need is an up-to-date web browser and an internet connection.

HUDDY, Viktoria Theoharova’s start-up, shows that a good business idea can develop further. At CAMPUSiDEEN 2017, she won over the jury with her business idea for the manufacturing of perfectly fitting, customized, and sustainable sweaters. Since then, a business plan for HUDDY has been developed and the company was successful in this segment. At HUDDY, you can design your own personal favorite item either online or on site in the retail shop, using a modular concept. The company thus meets the demand for individual clothing with a perfect fit. For the production, HUDDY uses almost entirely sustainably-manufactured materials from Germany.

Prizes Amounting to a Total of 15,000 Euros

On Tuesday evening, prizes with a total value of 15,000 euros were awarded at the festive ceremony at the Bremen Chamber of Commerce. Besides the first three places in the categories "Business Idea" and "Business Plan", an additional public choice prize was awarded in the category "Business Idea". The Bremen digital marketing agency and former CAMPUSiDEEN participant Admospherics funded the special prize “Search Engine Optimization”, which was awarded to Patavinus for their successful web appearance. BagFlip fromthe Bremen City University of Applied Sciences received another special price for “Idea Protection”, funded by the Bremen law office Nachtwey IP. Dr. Frank Thoss of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce held a speech and congratulated the winners.

About CAMPUSiDEEN

The CAMPUSiDEEN competition has been awarding prizes to the best start-up ideas of Bremen universities since 2002. It is organized by the BRIDGE university initiative, which is a cooperation of the University of Bremen, the Bremen City University of Applied Sciences, the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven, Jacobs University Bremen and the Bremer Aufbau-Bank to promote business start-ups with a university background. Their services include counselling and courses on the topic of self-employment.

CAMPUSiDEEN 2019 is supported by: BLG Logistics Group, the Bremer Aufbau-Bank, kraftwerk city accelerator bremen, the law firm Nachtwey IP, neuland – Büro für Informatik, Admospherics, Encoway, Sparkasse Bremen, and the Bremen Chamber of Commerce.