HIGH-TECH.NRW, the first business accelerator for hardware-oriented high-tech start-ups in North Rhine-Westphalia, ends with a virtual closing event, the so-called Demo Day, on 13 November 2020 from 12.00 and 16.00 CET. The accelerator is carried out this year for the first time and is piloted in the framework of the project NMP-REG.
HIGH-TECH.NRW primarily addresses hardware-based business concepts in the high-tech domain. The programme was developed within the context of NMP-REG and represents a joint initiative of the cluster NMWP.NRW and six leading NRW-based universities: Bochum, Dortmund, Duisburg-Essen, Münster, Cologne and Aachen. The programme concentrates on mentoring, capacity building and targeted networking activities between high-tech start-ups, industry partners and capital investors. To this end, HIGH-TECH.NRW has set up a strong and unique expert network, which currently comprises more than 50 mentors, coaches and strategic partners from industry, science and the financial sector, among them the three premium partners EVONIK, KIRCHHOFF Automotive and RAG-S Innovation.
During the Demo Day, the 12 start-up teams, who have run through the intensive 10-week mentoring programme, will present their innovative business cases in the areas of New Materials, Optical Technologies, Production Technology, E-mobility, SmartEnergy and Logistics 4.0 to an expert jury and a wider audience from industry and the scientific community. In the end, prizes will be awarded to the three winning teams that showed the best performance and revealed the most convincing business concepts.
The agenda further provides a panel discussion with Prof. Dr Andreas Pinkwart, Minister of Economics, Innovation, Digitization and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia on key challenges for high-tech start-ups, as well as a presentation on the genesis of HIGH-TECH.NRW as an example for fruitful interregional exchange of good practice, held jointly by Heinz Brueckelmann, cluster NMWP.NRW and Alexandre Mendes, International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL).
The event concludes with a virtual Get Together using the WonderMe platform, giving the participants the opportunity to get in closer touch with the start-up teams and exchange ideas about potential interaction and future cooperation.
The conference language will be German, participation is free of costs. For registration and more information including the agenda please use this link.
