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Fachhochschule des Mittelstands Fachhochschule des Mittelstands
DE

School of Start-up & Succession

Starters.Summit of FHM

Five exciting speakers, six experienced design thinking coaches, seven innovative ideas and 1,000 euros in prize money: that's what around 40 participants were able to experience at the Fachhochschule des Mittelstands (FHM) in March 2023. The so-called STARTERS.SUMMIT 2023 took place there from Friday to Saturday, and, as always, was organized entirely by FHM students. At the free Design Thinking Camp, participants develop a complete business model from an initial idea in small teams over the course of three intensive days and then compete against each other in short pitches in front of a jury – similar to the TV show “Die Höhle der Löwen” (German version of “Shark Tank”). The format is a regular part of the practical teaching at FHM and offers students a professional setting in which to gain practical experience live and directly. The first Starters.Summit took place in 2019, the second in 2021 - in the middle of the Corona period and therefore completely as an online format. The third event of this kind started in 2023, with many more to follow!

Presentations and design thinking help participants to hone their ideas

Anyone interested in so-called design thinking methods and wanting to apply them in practice can register to participate in advance of each Starters.Summit.

Last time, in 2023, participants even traveled to Bielefeld from as far away as Aachen and Berlin. In the end, the best team with the best idea was also determined in 2023: “Immigreatenergy” is the name of the non-profit company that was created, which aims to place foreign-language specialists in the energy sector in the German labor market. Prof. Dr. Anne Dreier, rector of the FHM, presented the winning team with the 1,000 euros in prize money in the form of a voucher.

The entire event was organized by bachelor students of the FHM degree programs in Media Psychology, Communication Design & Advertising, Event Management & Entertainment, as well as the master students of the degree program Content Creation & Management at the FHM Bielefeld under the direction of design and photography lecturer Prof. Patrice Kunte and Prof. Dipl. Designer Jochen Dickel.

The event kicked off on Friday afternoon with inspiring talks from Bielefeld-based entrepreneur Carla Ströher (Pure U – natural cosmetics) and Gesa Lischke from the Hanover-based agency Kochstraße. The participants then presented their submitted topics with fresh motivation and formed teams to further develop individual ideas together.

On Saturday, things got particularly exciting: the teams dealt with their target groups and their needs. On this day, two of the speakers also shared their experiences and provided valuable insights into their career paths. Melvin Schwarz (Recommendy) and Janosch Kriesten (Limoment) were two speakers from Bielefeld – Speaker Lee Kim (Pfizer) even joined live from New York. Then it got down to business: the plan was to create prototypes for business models.

Sunday was then dedicated to the pitches: all participating teams had to present their business model to the jury. The team from “Pitgit” took second place, just behind “Immigreatenergy”, and was thus the “winner of the hearts”. The idea behind Pitgit: a comprehensive application for contact messengers across messenger boundaries.

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