Successful innovation journey into the unknown

REACH - EUREGIO Start-up Center and Westfalen celebrate ideas for a clean future at the Headventures finale

Preparing the region for the future, retaining young talent and start-up teams, and driving innovation: companies are facing key challenges. This also applies to the areas of digitization, sustainability and mobility. The Headventures innovation project has impressively demonstrated how these challenges can be tackled in collaboration between business and science. The REACH – EUREGIO Start-up Center of the University and FH Münster has joined forces with the Westfalen Group and embarked on a six-month innovation journey. At the grand finale, interdisciplinary teams of Westfalen employees and students presented their final results to 250 guests.

“I am impressed by what the students have achieved in the short time of our Headventures ideas competition. They have delivered a truly outstanding performance in the six months. Not only did they develop great ideas and elaborate their concepts at a professional level, they also surpassed themselves by daring to present themselves and their ideas publicly on a big stage,” reports host Dr. Meike Schäffler, Board Member for Production, IT and Innovation at Westfalen.

At the beginning of the year, company-specific challenges and innovation potential were identified in a workshop. The teams then took on these topics. The REACH coaches accompanied the teams in a 6-week compact course based on the motto “from zero to start-up” and prepared them in a further practical phase. Five interdisciplinary teams, consisting of students and Westfalen employees, made it to the grand finale. “We are currently seeing, both globally and regionally, that companies and regions are facing challenges, have to position themselves innovatively and try to retain skilled workers. These central challenges affect us all,” says Prof. Dr. Thorsten Wiesel, scientific director of REACH – EUREGIO Start-up Center. The combination of business, science and young, creative people interested in setting up a company shows that the project is a valuable key to tackling these challenges together.

Full house: 250 spectators did not want to miss the Headventures final.

The winning team INCONSU developed an intelligent heat control system that provides a solution for how energy management in public buildings can succeed without wasting energy. “The team has shown a particularly impressive development. But we at Westfalen have also learned a great deal from our collaboration with the students and the REACH Start-up Center,” said Schäffler. No team went away empty-handed at the grand finale, as the prize money of €20,000 was split between them. The participants covered a wide range of topics – the ideas ranged from accessibility to PV systems for people without their own home, the expansion of e-charging infrastructure, fermented vegetables, and intelligent parking management for truck drivers. The latter was developed by the CARGOVIBE team, which won the audience award.

First place: INCONSU with an intelligent heat control system.

Those interested in taking part in the next innovation project can look forward to 2025. “The project has shown how valuable it is to bring students and companies together in a high-quality process,” says Schäffler. Wiesel adds: “We are therefore very pleased that we will be able to enter the second round in 2025, together with Westfalen, further partners and on a much larger scale.”