Sep 22 2016
Getting started! STARTUP AUTOBAHN Onboarding week
Last week was very exciting for STARTUP AUTOBAHN Plug and Play. After months of preparing, of scouting the best startups all over the world, and selecting the TOP 13 out of over 300 startups, Program 1 finally started on September 12th.
July 14th was a big day for STARTUP AUTOBAHN Plug and Play! TheLaunch Event and Selection Day for Program 1 took place in Fellbach near Stuttgart at the event venue GOLDBERGWERK. Around 350 attendees – startups, corporations, investors, universities, government representatives, press and the STARTUP AUTOBAHN partners (Plug and Play Tech Center, Daimler AG, University of Stuttgart, and Arena2036 e.V.) – were excited to see the keynotes and the startup presentations.
On September 12th, we were finally ready to dive into Program 1 with 13 startups from all around the world: Israel, Brazil, Finland, and Germany. The startups will have access to the following benefits during the program:
We started our Onboarding Week with a City Tour through Stuttgart for the startups, organized by the Welcome Center Stuttgart.
Wednesday was Mentoring Day. Roughly 30 Mentors from all over Germany followed our invitation to Stuttgart to sit down with our startups and advise them in different topics ranging from legal advice to marketing and to new ideas in business development and business modelling. In a rotating system, each startup had the chance to participate in three mentoring sessions for deep dive talks with the mentors.
“Meet Daimler!” was the claim for Thursday. After interesting speeches given by Daimler executives during the morning, the afternoon was all about meeting the Daimler technical experts. Startups met possible Daimler pilot partners from different departments and went in deep talks about how a collaboration could look like. During the next 3 months, startups will work closely with their Daimler counterparty in order to successfully develop pilots which will be presented at the STARTUP AUTOBAHN Plug and Play EXPO Day on January 31st, 2017.
And last but not least, on Thursday evening we held our monthly STARTUP AUTOBAHN Plug and Play Meetup. More than 100 people – corporations, industry partners, startups, mentors, universities and government representatives – gathered to see our STARTUP AUTOBAHN startups presenting on stage. In addition, the Israeli startup Noveto showcased a demo of their directed sound technology. We concluded the evening with networking, beer and pizza. STAY TUNED!
