Neuigkeiten

Oberpfaffenhofen, 1 May 2018 – Navigation information has become an essential part of our daily lives. Thus, the priorities are shifting from the deployment of infrastructure to service delivery across the globe. This source of positioning data offers a manifold platform for all kinds of solutions.

The ESNC awards such applications, services and new ideas that are using Galileo GNSS data to manage important challenges faced by business and society. Renowned institutions and regional partners are set to award prizes worth over EUR 1 million in total within more than 20 challenge categories. 

The main target groups include SMEs, startups, universities and individuals in the fields of business, research, and higher education who are welcome to submit their ideas. Submissions can demonstrate their innovative use of GNSS data across a wide variety of challenge topics.

Partners of the 2018 edition are the European GNSS Agency (GSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). In addition, participants choose from this year's confirmed 18 international partner regions.

Carlo des Dorides, Executive Director of the European GNSS Agency (GSA): “The European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) has always been ahead of its time. I am especially excited to see GNSS-based ideas boosting innovation in the field of Smart Cities, the Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile Health (mHealth), and many other applications. GSA has been a partner of the Competition since its early days, and we are looking forward to more successful stories.”

Together with cash prizes, challenge winners will receive access to an international network of leading GNSS organisations, crowd investing platform, and business development support.

We're proud of the active role the ESNC is playing in the commercialisation of GNSS products and services," states Thorsten Rudolph, Managing Director of AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, the competition organiser. "Since 2004, the competition has selected 307 winners in total. They were chosen out of more than 11,500 entrants from 90 different countries, who submitted over 4,000 cutting-edge business ideas. This is an excellent demonstration of how the innovation competition functions as a European deal flow pipeline for Earth observation."

In addition, the ESNC is complemented by the E-GNSS Accelerator to empower the transformation of great ideas into commercially viable solutions through a tailored on top business coaching service. All winners of the ESNC 2018 will gain access to the E-GNSS Accelerator if eligible.

For more details on this year's challenges, prizes, and partners, please see www.esnc.eu. 

About AZO – Your Partner in Competition & Innovation

AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen is an international networking and branding company initiating the most important space-related innovation competitions with more than 15,000 participants, over 200 industrial & public - and 400 international stakeholders. The Masters Series, presented by AZO consists of European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC), Copernicus Masters, Space Exploration Masters, and INNOspace Masters. AZO has been supporting entrepreneurship with more than 130 company foundations to date and the creation of 1,800 high-tech jobs in Bavaria with an annual turnover of about EUR 150 million. Additionally, AZO runs a very successful business angel network which invested more than EUR 130 million Venture Capital in 2016/17 as well as the ESA Incubation Centre (ESA BIC) Bavaria. For more information, please visit www.azo-space.com.

About ESNC

Initiated by AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Bavarian ministry of economic affairs & media, the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) today is the leading network for satellite navigation. The ESNC annually awards the best services, products, and business ideas using satellite navigation in everyday life, spurring the development of respective market-driven applications. For 14 years, the international innovation competition serves as an accelerating instrument for space‐related entrepreneurs and startups, providing Europe with novelties. Since 2004, more than 11,500 developers took part with an overall prize pool worth 13 Mio. EUR for more than 300 winners and about 240 international judges assigned with the evaluation of submissions. For more information please see www.esnc.eu.

Friday 25 and Saturday 26 May, CNES, ESA and ESA BIC Sud France organized the third edition of ActInSpace®, the top international competition devoted to space applications. Held concurrently in some 35 countries and 70 cities on all five continents, this competition open to entrants from all horizons aims to develop entrepreneurship and forge ties between space stakeholders and citizens by setting challenges for teams to solve based on patents, software, data or space infrastructures.

This third edition proved an enormous success, attracting more than 3,300 entrants. On the day of the event, 2,200 took part in more than 550 teams working for 24 hours on one of the 80 challenges set. Participants came from all horizons and showed themselves equal to the task of creating a start-up around space technologies. Almost half were from outside the field of engineering sciences, including students of literature, human sciences and even fine arts. This range of entrants was reflected in the diversity of projects presented. It is also worth noting that 23% of entrants this year are women. Like the previous ActInSpace®, students made up the bulk of participants, accounting for 75% of entrants, with the remaining 30% composed of 20% employees and entrepreneurs and 2,6% job seekers.

Business coaches and space experts were there to assist the participants at each venue, some 500 professionals remaining on hand for teams during the 24-hour event. The big new feature this year was an online support platform for the teams to get answers to their questions about space technologies. More than 2,100 questions were fielded by the 110 experts connected to the platform, thus ensuring that all entrants, even those from countries where a space industry is not yet well developed, benefited from the same level of technical support. Another novelty was the challenges asking teams to imagine themselves as new space entrants (40%) and devise ways for space to serve humankind (25%). The international final will be on Wednesday 27 June at the Toulouse Space Show, where each country will be represented by its best team. The team presenting the most promising project will win the Grand Prix ActInSpace, and numerous other prizes will be awarded. 

The international final will be followed by the prize-giving (or prize giving) ceremony in the presence of all the international partners who have supported the event: Airbus, Qwant, Invivo, AirZeroG, GSA, CLS, EBAN, FabSpace, Invest In Toulouse and Toulouse Business School.

Learn more at www.actinspace.org

We are happy to be part again in 2018 in ActInSpace. ActInSpace is an international innovation contest initiated by the French Space Agency (CNES) uniting over 60 cities across 5 continents. ActInSpace is supported by ESA and the ESA Business Incubation Centres network (ESA Space Solutions).

Are you interested in Space, in topics like EarthObservation, Satellite Navigation, Drone, Balloon, SpaceOperation, ImageProcessing, Materials, Robotic, BigData, ArtificialIntelligence, Moon, Mars, ISS, SpaceExperiment, Ecology, Health, Science and Data? Yes? Then join us at #ActInSpaceDarmstadt. 

We are looking for entrepreneurs, students, creative thinkers who would like to take part in this great challenge with like-minded people. The event in Darmstadt will take place on 25th and 26th of May 2018 in the nice HUB31 building (24hours). The international final will take place at the Toulouse Space Show 2018 on June 27th. The first prize of the winner in Germany will be a travel to the Toulouse Space Show. Our National Partner is DLR, partners are the City of Darmstadt, StartupValley and HUB31.

Sign up now: https://actinspace.org/register 

We will have technical experts and mentors who will help you and your team. The registration deadline is on 23rd May 2018. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask our team: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Geschätzte 450 Gründungsinteressierte und Gründer nutzten die Gründermesse „Tag der Gründung“, um sich auf ihren Start in die berufliche Selbstständigkeit vorzubereiten. 

Regionale und überregionale Experten an 50 Messeständen standen für Informationen und Beratung zu allen möglichen Fragen und Phasen der Gründung bereit.

Das Spektrum der öffentlichen und privatwirtschaftlichen Aussteller reichte von den Gründungsberatern über Wirtschaftsförderer und Finanziers bis hin zu Dienstleistern im Steuer- oder Marketingbereich.

Parallel zum Messebetrieb gaben 21 halbstündige Vorträge kurze Einblicke in bestimmte Themenbereiche vom Geschäftskonzept über Online-Marketing und Versicherungsschutz bis hin zur Unternehmensnachfolge. Ziel der Kurzvorträge war es, den Zuhörern inhaltliche Impulse zu geben und sie zu vertiefenden Infogesprächen an den Messeständen einzuladen.

Der „Tag der Gründung 2018“ fand im neu eröffneten Technologie- und Gründerzentrum „HUB 31“ in der Hilpertstraße in Darmstadt statt. Viele Besucher nutzten dabei die Gelegenheit zur Besichtigung der Räumlichkeiten.

Organisiert wurde die jährlich stattfindende Veranstaltung vom Kompetenznetz Gründungsberatung Darmstadt Rhein Main Neckar, einem Netzwerk von 31 Institutionen der regionalen Gründungsförderung.

Sebastian Everling, Sprecher des Kompetenznetzes und Leiter des Career Centers der Hochschule Darmstadt:

„Wir freuen uns, dass so viele Interessierte die Gelegenheit nutzten, an nur einem Tag mit so vielen Experten in Kontakt zu treten und von ihnen wertvolle Informationen und Orientierung zu ihrem Unternehmensstart zu erhalten. Der diesjährige Austragungsort im HUB 31 hat dabei doppelt gepasst, da er nicht nur der Messe, sondern auch Gründern sehr gute Standortbedingungen bietet.“

Die meisten Kurzvorträge können bereits unter www.tag-der-gruendung.de heruntergeladen werden. 

Unterstützt und ermöglicht wurde die Veranstaltung durch verschiedene Sponsoren, die die Durchführung der Messe bei freiem Eintritt ermöglichten:

• Volksbank Darmstadt
• cesah – Centrum für Satellitennavigation Hessen
• TIZ Darmstadt
• YPOS
• Sparkasse Darmstadt
• Göller Mentoring
• Merck