StarTH Together 2025 - Innovations from 8 Thuringian universities

On 21 October, the first StarTH Together of the Thuringian university start-up network StarTH took place at Kontor Erfurt - an event that impressively demonstrated how much innovative power there is in Thuringia's universities.

The University of Erfurt's Founders Service was represented by several committed founders:

• Nele Birte Anika Schöfisch (StarTH scholarship holder) impressed the audience with her pitch for verbin.de - offers to teach interpersonal skills for even better social interaction.

• Jule Henschel presented her parlour game "Oh! how East"which playfully connects East and West (see also MDR report). Among those interested in her stand was Lutz Liebscher, leader of the SPD parliamentary group in the Thuringian state parliament.

• Sebastian Stöcker, media pedagogue and StarTH scholarship holder, presented with lifeworld media presented his media education programmes for children, teenagers and young adults.

The evening was opened by a digital greeting from Minister President Mario Voigt, who emphasised the importance of universities as drivers of innovation in Thuringia. State Secretary Professor Steffen Teichert (TMBWK) was also present and presented the pitch event prize to the winner Zeinab Rahimi (neudeli start-up workshop at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar) for her project iACT - a VR solution for language acquisition.

In inspiring keynotes - including from Anika Luthardt (Feels likealso supervised by the University of Erfurt's Founders Service) and the exciting pitch event showed how closely networking, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit belong together.

Start-ups from a university such as the University of Erfurt, which is characterised by the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies, illustrate that innovation does not only have to be thought of in technical terms, but often has social, cultural and interpersonal effects. They thus make an important contribution to urgently needed social innovations and to the development of sustainable solutions for current social challenges.

The Founders Service of the University of Erfurt is proud of its founders, who were able to exchange ideas and network with numerous other people interested in founding a company, mentors and stakeholders from all over Thuringia during the event.