The Female Founders Academy, a cooperation project between the universities of Bayreuth, Mannheim and Passau, took place for the third time (11th March 2024 to 14th March 2024 in Mannheim). The aim of the event is to sensitise female students, academic staff and interested women to the idea of founding a company and to provide them with initial knowledge in the areas of ideation, business modelling, prototyping and pitching. And with success: five interdisciplinary teams developed promising business ideas in Mannheim. From an app for efficient and sustainable holiday planning to a platform for single parents and an innovative safety tracking option for children. "We are very proud of the participants for what they have achieved in such a short time," says Prof. Dr. Suleika Bort.
The participants were accompanied not only by experienced coaches from the universities, but also by successful female founders and experts. For example, the participants had the opportunity to exchange ideas with the founder Weihua Wang from myBuddy and be inspired by her talk. In addition, the participants were able to network with the female founders and start-up consultants from GIG7 in Mannheim.
In addition to the Female Founders Dinner, this year's highlight of the Female Founders Academy was once again the exciting final event, at which the participants were able to present their idea to an experienced jury consisting of Birka Wolf (Deputy Leader Female Entrepreneurship GIG 7), Janina Hack (start-up consultant for the city of Mannheim) and Aad-Henning Harsveldt (auditor and start-up expert from KPMG). The winning team was also announced in the new premises of KPMG Mannheim. The team has developed a platform on the topic of "cycle-orientated lifestyle". Congratulations to them! "We hope that we were able to motivate all participants to consider founding a company," say Nelly Rahimy and Kevin Koziol.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our main sponsor REHAU New Ventures, which is supporting the Founders Academy for the second time and making it possible in this form.
You can find more information about the Female Founders Academy here.
About PATEC - Passau The Entrepreneurial Campus
With PATEC (Passau - The Entrepreneurial Campus), the University of Passau is pursuing the goal of establishing a perceptible and activating start-up culture. Students from all disciplines can be inspired by the idea of their own start-up and take advantage of networking, training and counselling services. They benefit from the connection to their direct place of study and from the proven teaching and research expertise of the University of Passau. The start-up teams are taught skills in the areas of business models, digitalisation and law, sustainability, interculturality and public relations in six start-up hubs. The project, which has been running since September 2020, is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection as part of the "EXIST-Potentiale" programme, which aims to increase start-ups from science.