The Entrepreneurship Institute (EPR) has been promoting good ideas and the entrepreneurial spirit - including among students and alumni - since 2018. “Our aim as a private university was to make our contribution to the start-up scene in Germany,” says Ingo B?ckenholt, President of the 中国足球彩票手机版 School of Management (ISM). And what better way to do that than by promoting innovation during or immediately after your studies?

The ISM Start-up Competition has been held from the outset by the Entrepreneurship Institute, awarding prizes once a year to outstanding business ideas and thus promoting their further development.?So far, over 150 exciting idea papers have been submitted and more than 20 prizes have been awarded. The inspiring guest lectures by well-known entrepreneurial personalities such as Carsten Maschmeyer, Béla Seebach and Judith Williams will be particularly memorable.

EmpowerHER: Promoting female entrepreneurial spirit

The third-party funded project EmpowerHER, led at ISM by Sarah M. Siepelmeyer, has been running a program specifically for female students. Ten female students, who were selected from a large number of applications from all ISM locations, are supported over several months in an early phase of brainstorming and founding a company through advice, mentoring and various events.

“The project was a great success for everyone involved,” summarizes Sarah Siepelmeyer. “The participants received numerous offers of support over the scholarship period. Many of the mentors enjoyed contributing and seeing how the future entrepreneurs developed over the course of the project.”

A competence center for entrepreneurship with three fields of action

Since 2018, the Entrepreneurship Institute @ISM has focused on three main areas of activity: Start-up consulting, research projects and events for the further education of students. With this strategic focus, the institute has developed into a competence center for entrepreneurship at ISM. The institute has been successful in all three fields of activity - not least by attracting third-party funding.

1st Place: FalconFinds

3rd Place: VestingCircle

2nd Place: Clinitech

4th Place: Unite

Largest third-party funded project: EXIST Potentials

With the launch of the EXIST Potentials project 'Entrepreneurship as a Service' in 2020, the institute was able to record the largest third-party funded project at ISM to date (project volume over 600,000 euros). Together, the six third-party funded projects at the institute to date have a project volume of over one million euros. With over 250 individual start-up consultations, both students and alumni received advice on how to set up their own companies or successfully join a family business. Over 20 spin-offs have been documented. The scientific work at the EPR is underpinned by over 25 specialist lectures at various specialist events, more than 15 articles in specialist journals, five book chapters in edited volumes, a book on artificial intelligence by Prof. Dr. Ulrich Lichtenthaler and three edited volumes on sustainability and artificial intelligence. More on the current publication by Prof. Dr. Lichtenthaler and Felix Fronapfel in the press release.

Sarah Siepelmeyer and Felix Fronapfel regularly presented practical accompanying research at the G-Forum research conference as part of annual research activities. The EPR was also part of the 'K?lner Veedel' project - in which the digitalization of local retailers and the resulting customer loyalty was examined in cooperation with the Institute for Retail Research Cologne.

More about the institute: Entrepreneurship Institute@ISM

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