The teams of upCAT#7

PUBLISHED ON
11.04.2019
Author
Philipp Hauff
Category
News
Overview

Team: AURA

Your business idea:
With our product AURA we offer our customers a personalized and data-based possibility to analyze and optimize their sleep. With the help of a portable sensor system (wearable), a variety of bio-parameters are collected and then evaluated by means of AI
are evaluated. Based on this, weak points in the user’s sleep behavior are identified and a long-term improvement in the user’s sleep is achieved through targeted behavioral changes.

Your expectations for upCAT:
During the program, we hope to receive help in qualifying our product idea into a competitive concept.

The founding team:
Tobias Röddiger studies computer science in the master at KIT and takes care of the software development. Moritz Hoffmann is an electrical engineer in his bachelor’s degree and supervises the hardware. Both have independently implemented various software and hardware projects in the past. The team is completed by Prof. Dr. Michael Beigl, who supports from the conceptual and business side.

Team: CEPRI

Your business idea:
The goal of “Cepri” is to establish a large-scale, fully automated and modular production of edible insects. The insects and the insect powders and isolates produced from them are to be sold to food producers (B2B) as high-quality resources at lower prices than previously possible. In addition to optimizing the cultivation of mealworms through developments such as the Minilivestock Printer, an innovative system for harvesting insect eggs, the project is looking at the nutritional adaptation of the products with the help of specially developed and already tested feed formulations, and at optimizing the further processing of the insects into insect powders and isolates.

Your expectations for upCAT:
During the program, we mainly want to specify our business model and train our team in terms of economic know-how.

The founding team:
Lucas Hartmann, Bachelor of Science in Biology and will complete his Master of Science degree in March 2019 also in Biology with a focus on Zoology, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). He is the project leader in the team. Marcel Lieber is the scientific leader in the team. Through his studies in biology (B.Sc.) at KIT, he has experience in animal research. Currently, Marcel is researching a method for protein isolation from mealworms and pupae and the subsequent characterization of the protein fractions in the course of his master thesis. During her studies in food chemistry, Chantal Brandstetter not only learned about analytical methods, but also about the most important aspects of quality assurance in the food market. In a seminar paper as well as her bachelor’s and master’s thesis at KIT, she dealt intensively with the topic “Insects as an alternative protein source”. Paul Guigas is the lead technical developer in the team. Through his studies in media informatics (M.Sc.), which he is expected to complete towards the end of 2019 at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK Leipzig), he is both versed in digital image processing and proficient in the Python programming language.

Team: VENTECON

Your business idea:
Companies, business models and value creation are increasingly found in dynamic and complex environments, so-called entrepreneurial ecosystems are gaining importance and offer the competitive advantage. The sustainable success of a company depends on a holistic understanding of its own ecosystem as well as the optimal structuring and positioning within it. Networked thinking is not classified as the management competence of the 21st century for nothing and requires new solutions, especially in times of huge amounts of data and relations, so that companies can withstand the pressure of innovation and competition. VENTECON offers an intelligent solution for the holistic collection, visualization and analysis of corporate ecosystems, such as value creation or cluster networks, using state-of-the-art methodologies and technologies. In addition to manual data entry, VENTECON enables a broad integration of IT systems as data sources; an extensible schema for mapping entrepreneurial ecosystems combines standardization and flexibility. Following the mapping of data, the user can intuitively navigate through the dimensions of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, with analyses accompanying the process in real time. Pattern recognition is performed, enabling plausibility checks of business processes and revealing critical positioning. Unique insights combined with comprehensive reports enable optimal strategic positioning and ensure the continuity and growth of your business.

Your expectations from upCAT:
The expansion of our network, serious customer contacts (pilot projects), validation and know-how from (technical) experts, further development of the business model and prototype (MVP, product/market fit…) as well as a boost for the foundation of the capital company.

The founding team:
Patrick Beckedorf has been involved in software development and the digitalization of complex problems since 2009. Following his training as an IT specialist for application development, he completed his studies in business informatics (B.Sc.) at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences in 2014 as the best student of the year, in which he was able to deepen his knowledge of business administration in addition to his IT knowledge. Parallel to his studies, he worked in software and consulting companies as well as other private IT projects, which allowed him to gain extensive experience in the planning and development of (enterprise) software as well as new contacts. Since 2018, Patrick has been studying Information Economics (M.Sc.) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to achieve the best possible synergy of computer science, business and law. Patrick takes care of strategic planning as well as technical development.

Marvin Wiest has been dealing with information technology, economic and psychological issues since 2010. In 2014, Marvin started studying Business Informatics (B.Sc.) at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences to deepen both IT knowledge and business knowledge. Parallel to his studies, Marvin worked in the areas of audit and forensic analytics for various auditing companies. In addition to these and other activities in companies, Marvin also dealt privately with the economic discipline of entrepreneurship and supported students of business psychology with empirical surveys in the context of marketing and sales strategies. Since 2018, Marvin has been studying Information Economics (M.Sc.) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and is now also part of socially oriented projects. Marvin takes care of strategic planning as well as marketing and sales.

Team: PROMONODE

Your business idea:
The reputation of companies, brands and products is a critical factor for business growth. The goal of promonode is to use an artificial intelligence that can deal with the complexity of this topic and support the stakeholders of companies in their decision-making processes. In doing so, our AI technology provides automated insights on reputation topics with understandable KPIs. In addition to identifying factors relevant to reputation, real-time capability enables efficient processing of continuously changing data sets. With deeper, AI-based analyses, we show recommendations for action, which leads companies into a continuous improvement process to optimize reputation. This allows companies to identify risk factors in time and ensure growth-oriented development by means of holistic business management for public relations, target group marketing, customer management.

Your expectations from upCAT:
Finalization of the product concept, differentiation of our products for the business model, validation of the pricing and of course a lot of fun.

The founding team:
The entire team consists of KIT alumni with PhDs and former KIT employees. All of them have a strong IT background due to their degree in computer science. In addition to their three doctorates in IT-related topics, the team members stand out due to their extensive project experience and several years of professional activity.
Dr. Florian Knöll leads the team in the areas of organization, finance, strategy and analytics. Dr. Viliam Simko is the Technical Lead and stands out for his commitment to product development, analytics and quality assurance. Dr. Lucia Happe is responsible for the areas of communication design, marketing and support.

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