A total of ten teams were honored Tuesday evening for their research-based business ideas at the final event of the "Research to Market Challenge" ideas contest, and a special prize was also awarded for an initiative to slow climate change. The researchers emerged with their idea sketches as the best from a total of 44 projects submitted.

The contest was organized by Science & Startups, the alliance of startup services of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Students, graduates, doctoral candidates, and academic staff from all departments of the partner institutions of the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) were eligible to participate. Their business ideas were evaluated in the contest categories "Digital & Technologies", "Life Sciences & Health" or "Cultural & Social"; they had to be clearly related to the participants' field of work and had to be feasible. The concepts were evaluated by a jury in terms of degree of innovation, research reference, feasibility, and customer benefits. The top three teams in each category presented their application ideas at the final event. Prize money of 1,500, 1,000 and 500 euros was awarded for first, second, and third place, respectively. The awards were donated by the Ernst-Reuter-Gesellschaft of Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt University Association, the Gesellschaft von Freunden der Technischen Universität Berlin (Society of Friends of Technische Universität Berlin), Stiftung Charité, and Berliner Sparkasse.

The following application ideas received awards:

"Digital & Technologies" – donated by the Gesellschaft von Freunden der Technischen Universität Berlin

1. Quantif A.I.
   An artificial intelligence-based online assistant will be developed to better utilize image-based data in research. The product is designed to analyze the mapped objects in real time even before the images are captured and – while the sample is being inspected – provide feedback for optimization.
2. ASSET
   The ASSET team is developing an application in the field of secure data storage. An app is being developed through which data can be securely stored on the smartphone, for example a digital travel ticket or health data.
3. DocVox
   The DocVox business idea provides a user-friendly desktop application that takes the minutes of a virtual meeting with participants. The meeting assistant app allows the user to concentrate on the content of a meeting without having to focus on taking notes.

Social & Cultural – donated by the Ernst-Reuter-Gesellschaft of Freie Universität Berlin

1. Genderly
   The goal is to create a technology to facilitate the writing of gendered language. A machine learning model enables users to identify terms quickly and easily in their texts that can be gendered.
2. tReEFINE
   The aim is to create a platform that systematically improves the experimental conditions for laboratory animals. Implementation per research group is recorded; thus, the progress of refinement methods can be tracked over time; it will be comparable between working groups, departments, and institutions via a scoring system.
3. Greener
   Greener is a one-stop solution for sustainable consumer behavior. Combined in one app, consumers can discover sustainable offers, for example in cafés, clothing stores or supermarkets, in their vicinity and see how sustainable they really are.

Life Science & Health – donated by Stiftung Charité

1. Grief Relief
   The "Grief Relief" app is designed to help mourners find a way to deal with their loss and this feeling of grief, as well as to experience relief. Mourners receive assignments, suggestions, and inspiration for dealing with grief.
2. mHealthAtlas
   The goal is to build a platform for multidisciplinary evaluation of mHealth applications. The platform enables experts from the areas content (medicine), usability, security, and law to determine the quality of mHealth applications in an evaluation process.
3. MANVnet
   This app aims at providing a decentralized network including a clear application for smartphones, tablets, and laptops to improve the coordination of treatment sites in disaster management. MANVnet is designed to help capture patient flow more easily and maintain functionality when other systems break down.

Special prize

The Humboldt University Association's special prize for business and startup ideas to combat climate change went to the topologineer team. topologineer reduces material consumption through mathematically optimized designs of components.

Audience Award Berliner Sparkasse

The teams from Greener and topologineer, which had already won awards, also won the audience award endowed with 1,000 euros by Berliner Sparkasse.

 

Science & Startups

Science & Startups is the alliance of startup centers of the partner institutions of the Berlin University Alliance Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Science & Startups supports research-based startups and promotes the creative innovation of science. By pooling the resources of the three major Berlin universities and Charité, the alliance is creating a unique, internationally visible university startup ecosystem with extensive services, 1,700 potential academic mentors from the member institutions, and almost 130,000 potential co-founders.

The Berlin University Alliance

The Berlin University Alliance is a consortium consisting of three major Berlin universities – Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin – and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, established to shape research and education in Berlin. The four partners joined forces to further develop Berlin as a research hub with international drawing power. Together the partners explore major societal challenges, increase public outreach, promote the training of junior researchers, address issues of quality and standards in research, and share resources in the areas of research infrastructure, teaching, diversity, equal opportunities, and internationalization. The Berlin University Alliance is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the state of Berlin under the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the Länder.

Joint press release from Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin along with Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin

Press contact
Hans-Christoph Keller, acting press spokesperson for the Berlin University Alliance and press spokesperson for Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Email: medien@berlin-university-alliance.de