Are you interested in start-ups, entrepreneurship, and innovation? Then mark the upcoming workshops and events organized by the Transfer Center enaCom in your calendar. You will learn useful tools and methods for developing your own ideas, creating business plans, and managing innovations. And for all computer scientists and modelers: Join the #Hack4Surgery hackathon on June 6 and use machine learning to help improve surgical decisions in the emergency room and save lives!

The Start-up Spring School showcased a wide range of innovative ideas with clear market potential. Supported by start-up coaches, participants explored the different phases of founding a business and developed their own concepts. At the end of the week, they pitched their results to the plenary and received valuable feedback. The Start-up Spring School is jointly organized by the Transfer Center enaCom and the Start-up Manufaktur at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences (H-BRS).

It's hard for founders to get capital, but it's even harder for female founders. According to the German Startup Monitor and the NRW Startup Report 2024, low investment is the biggest hurdle for women when starting a business. This is where the new “Investment SHEroes” program from DIGITALHUB.DE comes in. Cooperation partners include the University of Bonn, Sparkasse KölnBonn, Techniker Krankenkasse, and others. Investment SHEroes runs from May 15 to August 15 and spends 12 weeks preparing female founders to deal with investors. The application deadline is April 20, 2025!

“I would like to say thank you to all women who have the courage to start a business now!” With these words, Mona Neubaur, Minister for Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection, and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, opened the Female Founders Venture Summit. Over 200 guests attended the annual event for female founders in North Rhine-Westphalia, which entered its second round in 2025. The highlight was the presentation of the NRW Female Innovation Award 2025, in which the University of Bonn start-up Mangolade secured second place. The summit is organized by Digitalhub in cooperation with the Transfer Center enaCom at the University of Bonn and other regional partners.

What are the first steps in founding a business? Where can I find co-founders? How do I finance my project? There are many hurdles to overcome on the way to starting your own company. Talking to other founders quickly shows: no one has to face these challenges alone. That’s why the Transfer Center enaCom, together with Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences (H-BRS) and the Digitalhub, is organizing the Bonn Start-up Roundtable for the second year in a row. Once a month, founders and those interested in entrepreneurship meet to exchange experiences, celebrate successes, and share concerns.

A research team at the Department of Neuroradiology at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) has received over half a million euros from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for the development of an intelligent interaction system for epilepsy patients and their caregivers. This will enable the implementation of the AI project epi-center.ai, which optimizes the digital networking of patients and epilepsy centers and improves the search for the origins of epileptic seizures, knowledge of which is crucial for treatment.

The University of Bonn is kicking off the second round of the EXIST Women program and welcomed the new scholarship recipients at the kick-off event last Tuesday. The Transfer Center enaCom will support them for nine months with an intensive workshop and mentoring program as well as numerous networking opportunities. The 13 participants come from various faculties at the university and want to use the program to take the step toward founding their own companies. EXIST Women is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).

The young company Taxpeer, a spin-off from the University of Bonn, has won first place in the “Start-ups” category of the prestigious Taxcellence Award 2024. With its AI-based learning platform for future tax experts, the team impressed not only the expert jury but also received the most votes in the public ballot. The award marks another milestone in the success story of the start-up, which was founded in August 2024.