Pitch event
Female founders present innovative and sustainable business ideas
An evening all about start-ups: Numerous guests accepted the invitation to the pitch event at Freiraum. // Photos Romina Bayer
As a special highlight of the pitch event, Iris Braun, founder of the social impact brand "share", spoke about her start-up journey and gave insights into her work. She was then available to answer questions. The guests were able to get to know all the ideas of the prospective female founders at the rounding-off Gallery Walk.
The pitches included:
- Pia Hildebrandt(concept e Solutions): The company reduces energy costs of industrial companies through the targeted use of renewable energies.
- Lucia Maletz(Go Safety Go): A SaaS solution for occupational safety that combines safety management and sustainability on construction sites.
- Amelie Dörnberg (HängemattenReisen): An innovative travel company specialising in sustainable adventure travel.
- Hedda Vaassen (DDPS Association): A self-organised African alumni network for peace and security.
- Sandra Bandura (Baboum): The sustainable coffee brand, integrated into a traditional coffee roasting company, combines innovation and tradition in the coffee business and promotes fairness for both customers* and farmers.
Congratulations: Pia Hildebrandt and Dr Marie Ossenkopf from concept e Solutions were delighted with their win.
The event offered the female founders the opportunity to present their visionary business ideas to a wider audience and receive feedback.
On the following day, a round table discussion served to deepen the topics of the previous evening and to reflect on and evaluate the mentoring programme's approach. To this end, participants of the mentoring programme shared their experiences and discussed them with experts from impact-oriented start-up consultancies at various universities, civil society organisations on social entrepreneurship and the bga - bundesweite gründerinnenagentur.
A documentation with recommendations for action will be produced afterwards.
What are impact-orientated start-ups?
In addition to the goal of financial profitability, impact-oriented start-ups have a clear focus on creating a positive social, ecological or societal impact. They aim to specifically solve problems in areas such as the environment, health, education or social justice.
About the project, participating organisations and sponsors
The impact-oriented mentoring programme is one of four experimental spaces that form the centre of the gfgw project. The aim is to improve the chances of realisation for female founders with sustainable start-up projects and at the same time to support the transformation process towards a sustainable economy. Experts from the fields of sustainability, start-ups, digitalisation and gender equality are working closely together to develop new approaches to support female founders with sustainable business models.
The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) as part of the "Equality in the Labour Market" action programme; it is implemented under the umbrella of the nationwide gründerinnenagentur (bga).
The programme is run by the Start-up Center of the University of Wuppertal (SUC), supported by the experience of Women Entrepreneurs in Science (WES ), who have already successfully implemented this mentoring programme five times - but without a specific focus on impact start-ups.
Iris Braun gave an insight into the world of impact-orientated start-ups and shared her experiences.
Special thanks went to the mentors of the programme.
The participants in the round table discussion reviewed the programme.
