The event was realized by the founding teams of the universities:

Team HNX, The Hochschule Niederrhein

Team GRÜNDERZEIT of the Hochschule Düsseldorf (HSD) University of Applied Sciences

Team HRWStartUps of the Hochschule Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences

Only teams with at least 50% women, inter*, trans* or non-binary persons were admitted.

A total of eight diverse teams were nominated by the three universities. The Hochschule Niederrhein had four women pitching for the competition crown.

Maike Breidbch with her idea: "You are not alone - a project to strengthen the resilience of children and young people from families with addiction problems.

Julia Janzen presented a social app designed to connect senior citizens and their relatives with socially engaged students in an intergenerational and target group-oriented way.

Julia Erkelenz & Céline-Marie Schaible are founding the Wohnzimmer, a vegan café that will primarily employ people with disabilities. They want to bring people together and live inclusion.

Even though our pitch teams didn't make it to the podium in the end, we would like to congratulate the

winners of the competition from the bottom of our hearts.

1st place: hIT - The team places IT specialists from Cameroon and Togo with start-ups and SMEs from Germany.

2nd place: SEASON - The SEASON app helps people with a female cycle to optimally manage their hormonal moods and energy according to the four cycle phases

3rd place Regrounds - The Enactus team from Düsseldorf produces sustainable coffee cups from coffee grounds.

In addition, our university start-ups had the opportunity to present their wonderful ideas, services and products at the fair. We would like to thank Tim Schmitz and Marius Janssen from Laminar Solutions as well as Maximilian Bergfried with his YOSHI NAMA GIN. Björn Ullmann presented his lamp ideas LORA. We were also delighted by the presence of Lesss in the person of Anja Wezel and Jana Pesch from Naroma-Tee.

Although Tugce Cakir and Magdalena Parylak are not university graduates, they were able to exhibit their products from treatfuls.

We are very pleased about the successful regional cooperation and the active collaboration with the other universities. Special thanks go to the HNX team from HSNR consisting of Stephanie Bienefeld, Yvonne Grein, Nico Hähnlein, Raphael M. Heereman, Stefanie Kutsch, Carola Lobemeier, Steffen Pabst, Andy Sacherer, Sylvia Sandmann and Petra Worms