Day 5 & 6 - Startups Inspire Our Students, Oktoberfest and Getting Back to Work

Carolin Fiechter from 'Leaf Republic'

Day 4 Part II: Startups Inspire Our Students

As promised today's blog will start with an update on Saturday's startup guests:

Leaf Republic produces environmental friendly food packaging and disposable plates and cutlery. PhyscoFilter cleans wastewater from clinics which is polluted by hormones and antibiotics.

The teams were impressed by the motivation and hard work those two companies had put in their businesses: It is important to face the challenges and never give up in order to survive. Of course you have to adapt your business model and always keep in mind: Create value for the customer.

David Wehner from 'PhyscoFilter'

After receiving lots of input from Leaf Republic and PhsycoFilter the project groups were asked to continue working on their ideas. The two startups coached our teams individually and helped them develop their ideas further.

At this point we would like to introduce two more of our teams: 

Kevin from Italy, Saskia from Sweden, Kelvin from the Phillippines, Mxo from South Africa and Bernardo from Brazil (Team 'House of Cards') are developing moldable and reusable packaging for the parcel sending industry. They want to make the sending of non-food items such as laptops or fragile items easier and eco-friendly.   

'Game of Thrones' (Marvin from Germany, Jonas from Switzerland, Luka from Serbia, Oreoluwa from Nigeria and Neha from India) are working on an approach to make food last longer in third world countries. They want to provide storage kits e.g. in order to cool or dry food so that it can be sold for a longer period of time and doesn't turn bad as fast as it does at the moment.

        

Team 'House of Cards'

Team 'Game of Thrones'

Day 5: Group Work and a Munich Experience

After half a day of working hard during group work our students were finally able to experience Munich at the Oktoberfest. The Entrepreneurship Centers invited the participants to socialise, get to know german tradition through German music, traditional Bavarian food and drinks. 

Having fun at the Oktoberfest

Day 6: Getting Back to Work

Today our participants got back to work and were asked to further develop their ideas and improve their business models. 'Linguedo' co-founder Matthias Gilch visited us today and coached the teams.

Now the project groups are presenting their business models to the team and the other groups. 
Based on their performances, GESS team member Florian Porsch from UnternehmerTUM is going to train the teams later today to improve their presentation skills in order to be successful at the upcoming finals on Thursday.