news

TU/e Contest speed dating day 2017: students pitch innovative ideas to partner companies

Do you know the natural high of a brilliant idea? Do you ever dream about successfully realising that dream? That realisation is becoming an achievable goal for the participants of the TU/e Contest 2017. During this contest, students from the technical courses further develop their innovative ideas. Last Wednesday, the 50 selected students gathered during the TU/e Contest speed dating day 2017 in the Kennispoort.

Speed dating with the Tu/e Contest 2017 partner companies
Last Wednesday, the participants traded their classrooms for some interesting speed dating sessions with the partner companies that are taking part in the TU/e Contest. The 16 Tu/e Contest partner companies gathered at the Kennispoort to support the students in the further development of their ideas or prototypes.

Lex Lemmens, Dean Bachelor College TU/e, opened this speed dating day with a short speech about entrepreneurship, followed by the presentation of the TU/e Innovation Space by Tom Selten. Thomas Mensink provided additional information about the ‘Golden Egg Check', an online application for entrepreneurs; they can use this to build, share and assess their proposition based on the criteria set by investors. The introductory part of the day concluded with the 'one-minute' pitches of the partner companies that took part in this event. After this, the golden bell rang, and the first individual speed dating round was on its way!

Preventing tunnel vision
In the speed dating room, the 16 partner companies are ready, each at their own table. The students will be going on seven speed dates, of 20 minutes each. Let's hope they don't mind some critical notes! During each round, the students have one minute to pitch their idea. This is a great way to exercise their skills; during the final of the Tu/e Contest they will only have one minute to convince the judges. After the ‘one minute pitch’, the partner companies will give their feedback.

Partner company SAP, market leader in the field of business applications, says the students are well-prepared. Jan Thedoor Wiltschek, Presales Director Innovations and Industries at SAP: ‘’I see a lot of intelligence and creativity, and you see they've put a lot of time into the concept. However, the students must also try to avoid tunnel vision. Sometimes you have to ask yourself: does the market need this? I advise the students to talk to many different people and companies, to figure out the true market demand.’’

 

A stolen jacket and an enterprising student 
The students are also enthusiastic about the speed dating. The 'Jakx' start-up, a group of six enterprising students, is working on an automatically protected wardrobe that can be operated using a direct debit card. The speed dates are helping 'Jakx' with the continued development of their prototype. Dennis Kok, student Industrial Engineering: ‘’We get advice about how we can produce our prototype at reasonable cost, and at the same time, we get to expand our network."

Why did they come up with this idea for an automated protected wardrobe? Lennert Kotan, student Mechanical Engineering: "I've had my coat stolen in a bar at least three times..."

Willem Brekelmans, Kayle Knops and Danny van de Haven, also known as the ‘Ares Analytics’ student team, just finished their speed date with Thermo Fisher Scientific. The student team is developing an electric measuring tool that allows athletes to optimise their energy consumption. Kayle, an Electrical Engineering student, is enthusiastic about the speed date. He thinks the companies are asking the right questions. Willem, also studying Electrical Engineering, would like to work with with Thermo Fisher Scientific "They can help us to translate the rough version of the prototype into a small and elegant product. They can also help create a product that can be reproduced on a large scale." Why is this team participating in the TU/e Contest? Danny, Biomedical Engineering student: "The TU/e Contest offers us a lot of structure and guidelines, and we need that."

 

Even though the attending companies subject the students to to some critical questioning, the atmosphere in the room is very relaxed. Daborah Pulles, student of Industrial Design, notices that the partnership companies are very interested and open to their ideas: "They want to help you; they're not belittling us, they treat us like equals." Verena Vredeveld, another Industrial Design student: "There are some real 'business people' around, but it still feels relaxed and informal." That's all Verena had time for, because at that moment, the golden bell rang out again. Time for the final speed dating round!

The students and companies finished this intensive speed dating day with some drinks and a traditional Dutch snack: 'bitterballen', small fried croquettes. This was a day packed with inspirational brainstorming sessions, critical questioning, good advice, interesting contacts and, above all, good ideas. The young entrepreneurs-to-be looked particularly happy with this final part of the day: "free beer!"

We would like to thank all students, coaches and partnercompanies for making this a very educative and fun day! 
Soon the aftermovie of the speed dating day will be published!!