Ten Young Companies Pitch Their Concepts

This month, joint projects are set to begin with Jena research institutions involving startups from Thuringia, as well as from Dresden and Bonn. Sebastian Händschke, Managing Director of the "Digital Innovation Hub Photonics" (DIHP), announced this on September 9th. The Hub is a project of the State of Thuringia funded by the Thuringian Ministry of Economics, which has been supporting spin-offs in the field of optics and photonics through the assistance of the institutes located on the Beutenberg Research Campus in Jena since 2019.

Five-Minute Introductions and Questions from the Panel

In a yearly competition, entrepreneurs have the opportunity to present themselves and their plans to a jury panel, which selects winners to receive scientific support. This year, ten companies presented themselves to the jury panel. These ventures have either already been established or are on the verge of launching. In the large auditorium of the Abbe Center of Photonics, the young entrepreneurs took advantage of the opportunity to outline their plans and their market potential with a five-minute presentation and answers to follow-up questions.

Solutions for 3D-Printing and Microscopy 

For example, Robert Kirchner, founder and CEO of the Dresden-based company Heteromerge GmbH, presented his company's solutions for high-precision 3D printing. As a spin-off company from the Technical University of Dresden, Heteromerge has developed a technology for automated material exchange in high-precision 3D printers. This technology enables multimaterial printing for small structures down to 100 nanometers. Philipp Wendelberger and Daniel Schröder, both Friedrich Schiller University Jena graduates, are among the founders of the Jena-based company Laser+. The company focuses on the automated analysis of data in the field of microscopy.

Dig-Free Fiber-Optic Cable Repairs

Errors often occur during the installation of fiber-optic cables in conduit pipes, which required laborious and costly excavations of the conduit shafts in the past. The Ilmenau-based company Kuptec has developed a system that allows for the detection and resolution of such disruptions without excavation, reported co-founder and managing director Mageeban Kuperan. The young company, which emerged from the Technical University of Ilmenau, positions itself as a service provider in the field of sensors and measurement technology and works, among other things, for telecommunications companies. “Our team brings extensive experience in the development of electrical devices, controls, and electronics,” says Kuperan.

Six Winners Receive Scientific Support

The jury had anything but an easy choice, reported Sebastian Händschke. In the end, the companies Heteromerge from Dresden, Midel Photonics from Bonn, and the Jena-based companies Linkdlab, Laser+, Indigo Optical Systems, and Alwin Schönberg were selected.

In the coming months, they will receive targeted scientific support from the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technologies and Abbe Center of Photonics at Friedrich Schiller University Jena located on the Beutenberg Campus in Jena, the Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences Jena, the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, the Hans Knöll Institute, the Helmholtz Institute Jena, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering.