It's time to start up! The Gründerzeit is an exciting Karlsruhe-based fair that will provide a compressed outline of all the most  important steps of founding a new venture.The visitors can learn a lot about the innovative business ideas of tommorrow, meet many different support facilities for startups and self-employed or just experience the passion of bringing a new venture into being.

The highlights of the program will be the federal finale of the Elevator Pitch BW competition and the bestowal of the CyberOne Hightech award.

The Gründerinnen- und Gründerzeit Baden-Württemberg will take place on the 3rd of July 2014 at the Gartenhalle, KMK, Karlsruhe. A forgoing registration for the fair is not necessary, but please note that you will need to register for the evening program (Elevator Pitch BW and CyberOne - Hightech Award). To learn more about the event, please visit http://www.gruenderzeit-bw.de/.

To get in touch with world-class technology ventures, Bosch has created the Bosch Venture Forum, which will take place on the 22nd and 23rd of July in Stuttgart.

Apply now if your startup is operating in the fields of autonomous systems, wearable electronics or smart industry and become connected to highly relevant decision makers.You will get the opportunity to present your case in front of investment managers of Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC) and delegates from the R&D, innovation and business as well as product development departments of the Bosch Group and to discuss potential cooperation opportunities with them!

Please note that the deadline for application entries is the 16th of May. Find more information and the application form at http://www.rbvc.com/en/events/future_event/events_page.html.

This year, the country Baden-Württemberg is tendering its innovation competition for the 30st time! The prize is meant to honour outstanding achievements concerning the development or use of new technologies. Its target group are small and medium-sized businesses. Apply now and win prizes with a total value of 50.00 Euros!

For more information and the application documents, please visit http://www.patente-stuttgart.de/index_ipbw.php. Please note that the deadline for entries is the 31st of May 2014!

The founding Competition „InnoWASTEon" is meant for students and academics  who have an idea for founding a business but still need consulting and financial help.The focus of the contest is on the area of waste and recycling; if you have either and idea for advancing the green economy or already a complete product, send in an innovative abstract und win great prizes like free office space, funding and your own conference!

The competition was created by Green Alley and Seedmatch, who are searching for ideas which can make Germanys economy greener: how can waste be used as a ressource? How can we develop from a throwaway society to a recycling society? How can people be motivated to use ressources more carefully?

To find out more about the competition, visit http://www.green-alley.seedmatch.de/de/start.html. Please not that the deadline for contributions has been extended to the 15th of July 2014!

All Start Ups, small and medium sized enterprises in Germany are invited to join the Cloud Champions competition on www.cloud-champions.de.  Submit your story about the Cloud solutions you are using at work. Cloud solutions are all solutions, where at least parts of the data are not saved locally. Until June 30^th 2014 you have the chance to participate and convince a top-class Jury in one of the following three categories:

• Simply working together
• Reduce costs
• Encourage innovative strength

In total prizes worth more than €54.000 will be awarded to the 3 winners in each category. The firsts prize is €10.000, company promotion and vouchers, the second prize is €5.000, company promotion and vouchers, and the third prize is €3.000, company promotion and vouchers. Join the community on www.cloud-champions.de, submit your success story and win attractive prizes.

The EIT ICT Labs Idea Challenge is a European innovation contest for early-stage startups. Compete now and get your share of the 80,000€, office space and a strong network: Winners are eligible to coaching and mentoring by the EIT ICT LabsBusiness Development Accelerator.

The contest will take place in eight different events all over Europe with each event focusing on a different topic. Up to ten finalists per topic are invited to pitch their idea in front of a jury. The Cyber-Physical Systems contest final will take place in Munich on June 2nd-3rd. It is organized by the CDTM and will join forces with the Siemens New Ventures Forum 2014. Finalists benefit from several workshops, coaching and great networking opportunities. Apply now at http://ideachallenge.eitictlabs.eu/.

To find out more about the Siemens New Ventures Forum 2014 and the organizers, visit: www.siemens-new-venture-forum.com and https://www.facebook.com/eitictlabs.ideachallenge.

Please note that the deadline for application etries is the 20th of April.

Future entrepreneurs, listen up! Here’s another great chance to make your ideas come true. BearingPoint, a European management consultancy, is starting a competition for innovative project ideas in the business and NGO areas! If you have a team of 2-10 people and at least one member is enrolled at an university in a German-speaking country, you can apply and get great support opportunities as a reward. The victorious team will receive 8000 € and one year of consulting!

Please note that the deadline for applications is Monday, 31th of March.

To find out more about the competition, check out the attached slides and www.beproject-europe.com!

High-Tech-Founders and Entrepreneurs, the game is on! Send in your application now to join one of the most important business plan contests in Baden-Wuerttemberg and compete for great prizes with a total value of 100.000 €!

CyberOne is a business plan competition that is powered by Baden Wuerttemberg: Connected and has been running for 16 years now. It is open for businesses from all technological branches like for example software/hardware, online and mobile businesses, multimedia or ehealth. The participants can win cash prizes up to 10.000€ and material prizes like the production of an image movie, not to forget the contacts and know-how every attendant receives!

The competition has two categories: the “startup”-category can be joined by founding teams, university project groups and businesses that are less than three years old and make a sales amount of less than 1 mio. € per annum. The “growth”-category is for businesses that are more than 3 years old, make a sales amount of more than 1 mio. € per annum and are planning a business expansion that is fraught with risk. The application is only open for businesses in BW or adjacent federal states.

To find more information or join the competition, visit http://www.cyberone.de/cms/.

Please note that the deadline for entrances is the 7^th of February 2014!

At the Europe StartupBus Challenge the participants develop a Startup from scratch within 72 hours while sitting in a bus driving through Europe. On October 27, six buses started from Amsterdam, London, Valencia, Paris, Rome and Berlin heading to Vienna. In every bus, several teams were working on their own ideas - all with the same goal to be one of the eight finalists that will pitch their idea at the Pioneers' Festival in Vienna.

What Made This Challenge So Special?

I took part in the German bus starting from Berlin, together with 21 other startup enthusiasts. The best experience was to work with people who shared the same entrepreneurial mindset and pushed themselves to their limits. During the trip we also met and competed against participants from the other buses, so-called "Buspreneurs" at our stops at well-known co-working spaces and incubators in Cologne, Karlsruhe and Munich.

It has been impressive to see how total strangers with totally different skill sets formed teams within hours and started to work on their projects. Every team had to think carefully about their idea in all kind of areas:  to build a business model, to create a marketing strategy, to consider the competition and the USP’s and finally the presence in social media. Finally and most importantly, we also had to create a (design-) prototype of the idea for the presentation in front of professionals.  And even after considering every tiniest detail, we had to adjust our whole concept over and over again according to the feedback we received from the professionals – all this while our bodies were desperately asking for some sleep.

In the German Bus, the five startups RingsAndBells.com, A2B, iHandy, treat.me and ShareSurance were created. But in the end, a team from the Dutch bus won the StartupBus Challenge with an application called Aiden. Aiden is an emotion-tracking app to help people reclaim their lives from depression.

Even though the 72 hours were extremely exhausting, I enjoyed every second of it. In case you ever thought about joining something like the StartupBus Challenge – Go for it, I promise it will be one of the best experiences in your life.

Max Kleinedler

Max is an entrepreneurship student at MCEI and nascent entrepreneur. We thank Max for sharing this excellent story and his  experience with us. Want to meet Max in person? He will open the Startup Lounge on December 3 with an inspirational talk. Do not miss this great opportunity.

The mai Bangkok Business Challenge 2014 invites graduate student teams to submit a business plan that is proactive in sustainable development. Your participation in this global new venture plan competition should contribute to strengthening your own and the University of Mannheim's entrepreneurship orientation. The student teams are competing for prizes with over $114,000 in total value, including over $30,000 in cash. Further, this is a unique opportunity for students to challenge themselves against teams of students from many of the best academic programs in the world.

Held annually since 2002, the mai Bangkok Business Challenge has been co-hosted by the Market for Alternative Investment, Thailand's Stock Exchange for medium-sized public companies and Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University. It was launched globally in 2008 and past entries include teams from all over the world, also including participants from Mannheim. For a full list of past entries please look at www.bbc.in.th.

Setting a new precedent in the standard of global business plan competitions, the goal of the competition is to encourage new ventures by instilling an entrepreneurial spirit in young minds and educating the general public about specific business planning skills and presentation techniques.

In order to register, each student team should complete and submit an application form with a Summary Business Plan, available on the website: www.bbc.in.th. The application period if from November 7, 2013 to December 30, 2013.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Jessica Di Bella from the MCEI, who will be happy to assist you with your application.