SMARTUP Scholarships 2022

SMARTUP Scholarships 2022For the fourth time, SMARTUP St. Pölten, an initiative to promote innovation, entrepreneurship and start-ups, awarded scholarships to three innovative start-ups from the St. Pölten region.

“It is pleasing to see how exciting and innovative projects are founded in the St. Pölten region year after year. With its scholarships and funding programmes, the city of St. Pölten makes an important contribution and helps start-ups to gain a foothold”, says Daniela Kittel (Deputy Chairperson of Platform St. Pölten and owner of Juwelier Dunky) who, together with Karl Baumann (Holzinger Tax) and Robin Gerl (rizup), formed the jury.

Hannes Raffaseder, project manager and member of the Executive Board of the St. Pölten UAS, is also happy with the great commitment of the start-ups. “In recent years, the SMARTUP initiative has contributed to strengthening innovation, entrepreneurship, and start-ups in the St. Pölten area in many ways and has now even received recognition at a European level. As a very central activity of the initiative, the SMARTUP scholarships support aspiring young companies that show promising growth and development, and also contribute to strengthening St. Pölten as an innovation location. We therefore hope that the successful SMARTUP initiative will be continued after the end of the current funding period next year.”

Scholarships Awarded

8 teams and young companies – dealing with diverse content – submitted their innovative concepts, clarified the reference to the St. Pölten area and explained how their start-up brings innovative strength to the location. After the 5-minute pitches, the jury decided who would receive the three SMARTUP scholarships endowed with 5,000€ each:

Loonity

Loonity is an offline app for preschoolers that enables children with dyscalculia and dyslexia, in particular, to practice and improve necessary skills for school entry.

Team: Lydia Popp, Moritz Popp, Maritta Schalk

1:1 planbar (plannable)

Walk through properties before they are built. 1:1 planbar realises real estate before the actual construction phase by means of projection. Mobile walls & furniture provide a real sense of space. The company uses the latest technology to make the projections lifelike.

Daniel Gruber

Hydrosolid

HydroSolid’s HIVE One is a novel hydrogen storage technology that enables clean, affordable, and highly competitive energy storage. The company’s patent-pending nanomaterial binds hydrogen at the atomic and molecular level and can safely release it when heated.

Team: Michael Renz, Lukas Renz, Clemens Regehr, Merkur Smajlaj, Cyril Rajnák, Zuzana Bielková, Matthias Jansch

Learn more about Hydrosolid

 

Panel Discussion: Dos and Don’ts in Entrepreneurial Marketing

Following the award ceremony, a panel discussion dealt with regionality in marketing, sustainability as well as typical marketing mistakes made by start-ups. The panelists were Dina Mansour (Marketing Natives and CONDA), Daniela Kaser (Marketing and Communications, St. Pölten UAS), Irene Auffret (MIT Auffret), and Martin Weber (gugler* MarkenSinn).

 

The Future is Regional

The “SMARTUP” initiative was launched in 2018. The programme considers itself to be a driving force and supporter for all those who seek entrepreneurial success with new ideas and can contribute to a future-oriented location St. Pölten.

Since the start of the initiative, quite a few start-ups have been founded or promoted. This has led to a broad network that offers mutual support and strengthens the region.

SMARTUP is implemented by the St. Pölten UAS on behalf of the city of St. Pölten, which funded the project.