Steinbeis enterprises from Romania and Ukraine were exhibitors at Baden-Württemberg’s major event on start-ups, organized by the Ministry of Economics, Labor and Housing Baden-Württemberg.

Event resulted in a great networking opportunity to present STM’s newest services for enterprises and other actors working on innovation. The 25.000 m² hall of Landesmesse opened for 350 start-ups from Baden-Württemberg and international partner regions, 400 B2B partners from large corporations and SMEs, VCs, Business Angels – and 5,000 participants!

Jürgen Raizner and Ana Turcan took the chance to visit most of the exhibitors in order to get update with the latest innovative start-ups and their solutions. For two ongoing European projects, European Early Innovators Program and ifempower, new connections are established as relevant stakeholders were among the exhibitors. State Secretary Katrin Schütz visited Steinbeis stand and got acquainted with the competence group of Steinbeis Centers in Bucharest, Stuttgart, Uzhgorod and Vienna.

Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann and the Minister of Economic Affairs, Dr. Ing. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, were enthusiastic about the high level of response received by the second, even more international, summit of the state campaign. The minister announced to establish the Start-up BW Summit as the central event in Baden-Württemberg’s start-up scene. In bilateral discussion with Jürgen Raizner, Minister Hoffmeister-Kraut thanked him for his commitment in promoting female entrepreneurship (ifempower).

Steinbeis Transfer Management S.r.l. in Romania participated at the event as support organisation for start-ups. Priority is given on knowledge based businesses. In most cases those are established in cooperation with technology transfer centers (Steinbeis Network Romania), hosted by universities. STM also designs and implements projects to foster the establishment of start-ups, e.g. the European Early Innovators Initiative (project of Danube Strategic Project Fund) or ifempower (Erasmus+).

Ukrainian Steinbeis Transfer Management Ltd. is established as a technology transfer center in partnership with University Uzhgorod. Students of this well known and highly recognized Ukrainian university develop promising projects with high potential to become succesful start-ups. Three examples: Compositions of essential oils with wide range of antimicrobial activity | Remote monitoring system with elements of augmented reality for fireworkers | Autonomous Injection Module Device. Steinbeis supports those young scientists.

Both Steinbeis enterprises, the Romanian as well as the Ukrainian, received strong attention from participating start-ups who look for suppliers. Discussed topics, among others: software development in Ukraine, manufacturing prototypes in Romania.