Review: The WORLDFACTORY Demo Day 2024

The WORLDFACTORY Demo Day on April 29, 2024 represented the second round of the start-up competition. After the great success and positive feedback last year, it was clear that there would be a new edition in 2024. Ten promising start-ups were invited to pitch to the jury. These ten teams had qualified in advance: asyoube, Biomere, BLINC, DrinkSea, InStand Digital, Mechanolution, mechIC, PicoShape, simpleBuild and utilacy. The aim was not only to win the title of #Top5 Start-ups of Ruhr-Universität Bochum 2024, but also to win a total of €3,000 in prize money for the first three places, sponsored by NRW.Bank.

With the WORLDFACTORY, we support around 100 start-ups every year on their journey of founding a company and thus actively support the transfer of knowledge from science to business. In doing so, RUB and Bochum are demonstrating that the city is successfully transforming itself from an old industrial and coal-mining town into a digitization and knowledge hub. The fact that the event took place in the O-Werk is a good example of the city's successful transformation: where once people worked for Opel, you can now find high-tech and concentrated knowledge. In addition to the six-member jury and the participating start-ups, numerous guests gathered in the atrium of the O-Werk that evening to gain an insight into the start-up world at RUB. They not only had the opportunity to listen to the start-ups' pitches, but also to get an impression of the WORLDFACTORY during a tour of the RUB Makerspace.

This year's jury was made up of the following high-caliber personalities:

• Dr. Stefanie Bröring (CEIT + WORLDFACTORY)
• Sebastian Hanny-Busch (NRW.BANK)
• Sherin Maruhn (PwC Deutschland)
• Prof. Dr. Christian Zenger (PHYSEC GmbH)
• Dr. Yicheng Wang (Start-up RayVen)
• Michael Brandkamp (European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF))

The highlight was reached at around 7:30 pm when the winning teams were announced. We are delighted for these five well-deserved winners:

5th place: InStand Digital - The founders Firdes Celik and Patrick Herbers developed an app that can be used to document and identify damage to infrastructure and building construction. The AI tool that is integrated in their app automatically recognizes damage and documents it reliably. With this application, the start-up provides a useful tool in civil engineering. With this, the founders achieved third place in the "Built on IT" competition at the beginning of the year and now fifth place at Demo Day 2024.

4th place: utilacy - The aim of this start-up is data security. The founders Dr. David Niehues, Amin Faez, Sebastian Overhage and Moritz Schmidt focus on decentralized data processing and direct coding on the data sources for their solution. This enables the start-up to guarantee mathematically verifiable security. They use a cryptography platform with a focus on recurring use cases. About themselves, they say: "We are the data trustee you don't have to trust", giving the zero trust approach its true meaning.

3rd place: PicoShape - With their start-up, the founders Felix Behlau and Dr.-Ing Nils Surkamp are providing an innovative solution in the field of two-photon polymerization. For this purpose, they are developing compact diode laser-based systems. They also want to position themselves in the field of micro 3D printing. The aim is to bring a cost-effective complete solution for the production of three-dimensional microstructures onto the market. They are currently preparing an EXIST application for this.

2nd place: Mechanolution - The aim of this start-up is to push the boundaries of chemical synthesis and create new opportunities for innovation in this field. The team around founder Desi Dobreva uses mechanical support to drive synthesis processes in chemistry, thereby saving energy and solvents. The benefit of this innovation lies in the ability to produce synthetic substances while using fewer resources than conventional processes.

1st place: mechIC - The start-up develops innovative strain sensors for energy-independent, fail-safe, robust and easy-to-integrate component monitoring. Its advantage is that they are easy to install and do not require their own power source. This means they can be used easily and in many different ways. The founders Philip Schmitt, Steffen Wirremeier, Henning Mays and Lisa Schmitt have developed this innovation, which has been funded by Exist Forschungstransfer since April 1.

Here they are - the TOP 5 start-ups of RUB 2024! The second Demo Day was once again a complete success, not only for the five winning teams, but also for the WORLDFACTORY! We are delighted about the many visitors and the opportunity to represent and further connect the RUB start-up ecosystem. We congratulate the winners and wish all start-ups continued success and hope that we can continue to support many bright minds on the path to founding a company in the future!