Seven outstanding start-ups honored with the Spin-off Award 2024
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At the #neuland x atec Congress, the first round of start-ups with roots in RWTH Aachen Unviersity were presented with the RWTH Spin-off Award. As the only official award for outstanding spin-offs from the university, the Spin-off Award is a quality label for the winning teams, allowing them to promote their business with reference to its scientific origins in RWTH Aachen University. The label has supported past winners in gaining credibility among investors and attracting new customers. At the same time, the successful teams serve as role models for future entrepreneurs and ambassadors for the technology and innovation location Aachen.
The first set of winners of the Spin-off Award 2024 represent the wide range of excellent research disciplines at RWTH Aachen University. We are proud to have such a strong and diverse field of start-ups represent the RWTH start-up ecosystem far beyond its borders. Congratulations to the winners and all the best for your future endeavors!
CarboScreen: Revolutionizing the carbon fiber industry through digitalization: CarboScreen develops sensor systems for carbon fiber production and processing. For the first time, users can obtain information about the condition of their fibers during the ongoing process and evaluate it using AI software. As a result, product quality and process reliability increase while costs and energy consumption are reduced. As a first mover, CarboScreen is making a major contribution to the digitalization of carbon fiber production and processing.
helpwave: Creating a process-oriented digital twin of the healthcare system: helpwave offers an open innovation platform that enables software developers and researchers to seamlessly integrate their solutions into the healthcare system. The platform not only reduces data protection concerns, but also helps to optimize the healthcare system with the help of object-centered process mining. helpwave creates a bridge between innovative technologies and the healthcare system to increase the efficiency and quality of medical care.
ivilion: Accelerating the transition to e-mobility through innovative battery back design: ivilion is helping to ensure that electric cars can truly compete with combustion engines. The revolutionary battery pack design is based on a patented, load-bearing cooling structure that enables fast charging in 10 minutes, massive cost reductions, increased safety and a greater range. ivilion creates significant added value to strengthen the innovative power of Western industries and to change people's mindsets in order to overcome prejudices against electric cars.
Nerite: Pioneering the practice of smart framing: Nerite develops sensors that allow for a continuous, fully automatic and accurate soil analysis of fields directly on site. The sensor makes it possible for the first time to collect accurate nutrient data from the field on a daily basis. With the patent-pending technology, the start-up supports farmers and companies in making informed decisions about their fertilization strategies in order to save both costs and CO2 emissions. In this way, Nerite enables cost-effective, high-quality, feasible, digital and sustainable smart farming.
OSPHIM: the sustainable transformation of the plastics processing industry: OSPHIM provides a digital ecosystem for the practical application of modern AI-driven methods in plastics processing. With the platform, machines, peripherals and other data sources can be digitally connected and processes can be set up and optimized using AI. In this way, massive savings in time, energy and material can be achieved. The corresponding hardware, a plug-and-play solution, allows the data to be recorded and transferred to the user-friendly platform. The solution combines state-of-the-art artificial intelligence methods with the specific know-how of plastics processing to make injection molding processes more efficient, precise and sustainable.
re.solution: Establishing a circular value chain for recycled polyester from textile waste: re.solution is developing a chemical recycling technology for textiles containing polyester. In contrast to other recycling processes, the electro-chemical hydrolysis process is based on water and does not generate large amounts of environmentally harmful salt waste. The fiber-to-fiber recycling technology works with a variety of source materials and ensures a high quality of the recovered materials as the polyester is broken down into its building blocks. This innovative solution makes textile recycling not only ecologically but also economically sustainable, so that the process of burning textiles becomes obsolete.
RooflineAI: Exploiting the full potential of AI on energy-efficient computing systems: RooflineAI addresses a major, often overlooked barrier to the widespread use of AI: the programmability of AI chips. The start-up offers a "retargetable" software development kit (SDK) that enables the flexible provision of any AI models on different chip target hardware in edge computing. The software is not only a highly flexible, efficient and easy-to-use tool tailored to the end user; thanks to its horizontal orientation, it can also be used in all industries to make more energy-efficient systems usable today.
The application phase for the second round of the Spin-off Award 2024 will start in late summer/early fall.
