Partners
MCEI is only as good as our partners. Here you can find all our partners sorted according to the services they can offer to you.
The Enactus World Cup is over! From October 22 to 24, 5000 Enactus members from all over the world met at Bejing to pitch their projects in front of a grand jury.
The nation of Germany was represented by the Enactus Mannheim team, which had won the National Cup in September. They won the preliminary round against Tadzhikistan and the Ukraine, but bowed out in the semifinal round against Puerto Rico. The world cup was won by China with a solar project, second place was secured by the Morroccan team with an innovative solution for the purification of water.
However, the three projects which were pitched by the Mannheim team are quite amazing anyway!
Intercreative is taking care of asylum seekers who have no work permit in Germany. Together with them, the team created a cookbook with foreign recipes ("Intercreative-Die Welt kocht im Quadrat" can now be bought at the university of Mannheim). This brought public attention to the conditions of asylum seekers and allowed the funding of some language and application courses for them.
Sunté is a project set in the rural regions of Togo. Local hospitals are being equipped with solar cells to give them a better power supply. Furthermore, visitor will be able to charge their cellphones in charging stations. This feature is meant to convince more people to enter a hospital, because many Togolese people distrust and avoid western medicine.
Finally, Autipreneur is a project that will help autistic people to realize their business ideas and market their products. To do that, they found companies which are solely led by autists! The project was created in cooperation with Auticare e.V. and has already brought forth a first product: "Sonarglove" is a glove that works like an acoustic parking distance control system and allows blind people to find their way more easily inside of buildings.
Creating start-ups at an early age is increasingly becoming a trend. More and more young people see founding a venture as a way to self-fulfillment and a free life. One of them has now written a book which is meant to smooth the way for all others: Thorsten Reiter, Mannheim Alumni, former chairman of Enactus and entrepreneur since the age of 16. His book "Start-up jetzt!" is a guide that covers the most important aspects of founding a company like developing a business model, building a team and creating effective marketing campaigns.
ABSOLVENTUM Mannheim and VaPassion e.V. proudly invite you to a presentation of the book by the author at the University of Mannheim. Don't miss this great chance to hear an exciting talk by Thorsten, who is also working as a professional keynote speaker! Furthermore, Dr. Michael Geisser, founder and CEO of the start-up ubivent, will share his experiences.
When? Thursday, November 13 2014, 7 pm
Where? Room M003, University of Mannheim
The Mannheim Business Angel Network is proud to inivite you to an online conference where three exciting startup companies will present their products via the internet to you. Attendance is free and open to everyone interested in startups and early-stage-investments. Just register free of charge for more information!
When? Monday, the 10th of November, 8pm
Where? Please register at https://www.anymeeting.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=EB51D682854931.
The first company presenting is Briefcase Biotec, founded by alumni from University of Graz, Austria. Briefcase Biotec is building synthetic biology infrastructure, their first product is KiloBaser, a rapid DNA prototyper (kind of a “DNA-printer”). It addresses the fast growing market of synthetic biology.
The second company Career Foundry, led by a Rocket Internet-alumna, is a fast-growing education platform for building future careers in tech. It is the first online career accelerator using blended learning incl. mentored online courses for tech skills, addressing the fast expanding market for online learning. You will find additional information in this video.
The third company presenting is Chiffry, founded by alumni from University of Halle and University of St. Petersburg. Chiffry offers a secure messaging-app for smartphones as an alternative to widely used messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Skype. dIt offers secure end-to-end-encryption, thereby preventing interception of messages by third-parties. In addition, it offers end-to-end-encrypted phone-calls, thereby helping to establish privacy again! You will find additional information in this video.
Last week, 33 participants from the University of Mannheim and other universities in the Rhein-Neckar area participated in our Entrepreneurship Bootcamp. During the kickoff-event at Tuesday evening (21.10), introduction session were held for the participants as well as the local key actors in the entrepreneurship area. Institutions like the MAFINEX Gründerverbund Entrepreneur Rhein-Neckar e.V., the Heidelberg Startup Partners or the Technologiezentrum Ludwigshafen offered a concise overview of the various local support opportunities for founders and people who think about becoming one. The following Startup Lounge with free drinks (powered by Osborne Clarke) brought a relaxed conclusion to the first evening.
The second day started at Thursday morning with the topic „human centered innovation“. Hendrik Dahlhaus gave a great introduction and left the participants with an apetite for a further examination of the topic. Subsequently, Thomas Prexl from the Heidelberg Startup Partners held an exciting and entertaining presentation about the topic "Market Research".
Two insights into the world of finance were provided by Marc Langner from Leonardo Venture who spoke about VCs and Alexander Ernst from the Mannheim Business Angels Network who gave valuable information about the topic "Business Angels".
The keynote of Michael Altendorf, co-founder of Adtelligence, was considered as a special highlight by many participants. The presentation of Robert Koning, founding consultant and Business Angel, was also cherished for explaining the Business Model Canvas with the “cow approach” in a very charming manner. The founder panel focussing on HR was the conclusion of the second day. It was well received by the participants, especially because of the lively exhibitions of anecdotes from the daily rountine of startup founders.
On the last day (25.10.), marketing strategy as well as rather formal topics like the choice of a legal form and taxes were processed. Dr. Tilo Jung and Stefan Baumann gave some competent and suspenseful introductions. After that, some fresh air was brought in by the pitches from the Junior Accelerator participants. They were all at a high level of innovativeness and professionalism - a great conclusion to this year's Bootcamp, which left many participants with a "let's do it!"-feeling.
