The old year is coming to an end, with the scent of fir trees and innovation,
so we wish you much happiness and inspiration for the new year!
Dear partners, supporters and friends of Univations GmbH,
The turn of the year is approaching and we look back on a year in which we have moved a lot together with you. We were able to network numerous people, initiated innovative exchanges, supported you in implementing your own ideas and, conversely, also positioned our ideas in innovation work at regional and international level.
We participated in numerous new and established event formats for our state of Saxony-Anhalt. More than 800 students took part in the futurego competition. After sifting through 190 business concepts and the big final event, the winner was Team Shop Zettl from Wernigerode. They convinced the jury with an app designed to make shopping easier. When it comes to financing business ideas, this year's Investforum Pitch Day was able to bring together 27 startups from Saxony-Anhalt with more than 70 Investor:innen . Our congratulations go to the startup SALIFAKTUR, which took home the Startup Award. The company is Germany's first producer of sea asparagus.
It was and remains our declared goal to bundle the interests of young companies and to strengthen their representation vis-à-vis politics and business. In April, as the state spokesperson for the Startup Association, we invited the young companies to the Startup Talk and facilitated intensive exchange. With the startup platform HERE! we go. in 2022, we were also able to illustrate how individual the motivation, approaches and challenges are on the way to a successful company. By the end of the year, 40 stories about founders from Saxony-Anhalt had been published.
Looking back, we are - also through the daily work in the Investforum Startup Service, at HERE. we go! and at futurego - always thrilled anew about the smart ideas, the innovative power our state has to offer. That's why it's even nicer that this year we are a partner of the best-known state competition for innovation in Saxony-Anhalt, the Hugo Junkers Prize. The application phase runs until January 11, 20223.
With our partners in the Translational Region for Digitized Healthcare, we realized several events to more effectively bring together people and projects who want to help shape and improve the future of health and care. In addition to numerous panel discussions and networking events, the focus this year was particularly on the premiere of the TDG SUMMIT, a summit of stakeholders in healthcare in Saxony-Anhalt. The premiere of the event already brought us closer to our goal of developing and establishing new approaches and innovative solutions in this area. A second edition is planned for the fall of 2023.
Halle (Saale) was the only city in Germany to host an EU-funded innovation camp in 2022. There, too, we provided active support in project and event management. Through "Science meets Regions", city stakeholders from business, politics and civil society, supported by scientific experts, were given the opportunity to propose ideas for developing measures for a livable inner city of Halle- against the backdrop of climate change.
But a lot happened not only at the local level, but also at the European level in 2022. Good progress was made in the EU projects, which are implemented in close cooperation with international partners. On the one hand, this required weekly online meetings, but on the other hand, as a welcome change, some colleagues went to transnational partner meetings in Innsbruck, Bolzano, Amsterdam and Antwerp.
The Succession Ready project was added at the beginning of the year. It is designed to provide support for SME owners, successors and supporting structures such as vocational training institutions in order to reduce the hurdles in the succession process. ARDENT, on the other hand, came to a successful end in May. During the project period, economic and social challenges as well as needs were analyzed and met with measures in 5 rural working groups - also in Saxony-Anhalt. The result was the Rural Entrepreneurship teaching program, which supports universities in promoting entrepreneurial activity in adult education.
We are particularly pleased about the good cooperation and the resulting progress towards the development of the digital platform in the EICAA project. EICAA is the second EU project for which Univations is the coordinator. The platform, whose Competence Monitor already allows groups to record and evaluate entrepreneurial competencies via a self-assessment, is at an advanced stage. It is now being optimized and expanded step by step. A particular success: We had the opportunity to present the functions and the development process in the Journal Education Science presentation and were thus able to share our vision with a larger international audience. The project will continue to accompany us in 2023 until its completion.
We also have many ideas in mind for the coming year that we would like to implement with you. We are aware of the need for funding and support to put innovative ideas into practice and hope that we will be able to resume our work in full in 2023 in targeted projects and formats. We are grateful for the many good collaborations, exchanges, projects and events with you as our Partner:in. We wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Sincerely,
the entire team of Univations GmbH