On May 08, 2023, the Chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Business Models, together with Rentenbank and Tech Quartier, organized the Demo Day of the Idea Camp in the Makerspace at RUB. Eight teams presented their results to the jury, which consisted of Prof. Dr. Stefanie Bröring, Dr. Christian Bock, Dr. Philipp Rittershaus and Lucas Daniel Schmitt. All teams developed impressive concepts in a short time. Students from the Start-up Creation module also participated in the event together with competitors from outside RUB as part of the module.

Throughout the event, there were presentations from the industry and from other founders from the agri-food sector .

The Idea Camp is part of the Start-up Creation module that is running this summer semester. After the presentation, we had a feedback session with the students to find out how they evaluate the module so far, what are the key learnings and how the event helps them to further develop their ideas and knowledge on how to develop new business models. We know that practice is very important to understand the theory for startup development, that a good understanding of the ecosystem and intensive teamwork are important. Here are some observations from our students:

“Very well organized, even if it is offered for the first time, it helps students to develop ideas and also to create a startup, it also helps to network with others.”

“I find the module very exciting and interesting. You learn a lot of practical things. But the module is also very extensive, especially because of the extra weekend.”

Regarding the Idea Camp, students responded that it was a worthwhile event, especially because they had time for intensive and necessary interaction for idea development, team interaction, testing with stakeholders, and interaction with other members of the startup ecosystem:

“The Idea Camp was very helpful. We had time and quiet to work on our idea in a group and get feedback from others (in the industry).”

“It totally changed our BM and we got feedback from different people which was very helpful.

“Very cool event and helpful for the course. Opportunity to interact with young founders and professionals from universities and startup environment.”