The Gen Z Startup Weekend, organised by Young Talents Club Hamburg (YOTA), Young Makers Hamburg (YOMA) and Next Entrepreneurs, has just taken place once again at the Körber Start Hub. Over the weekend, 20 young people between the ages of 15 and 19 came together to take a closer look at the topic of founding a company. Particularly striking: 17 of the participants were girls. The winner was an app designed to promote health across generations.
At a startup weekend, people who for the most part have never met before come together in spontaneously formed teams to develop the concept for a startup in less than three days and present it to a jury and the audience. The participants of the Gen Z Startup Weekend had barely 15 hours net to do this, which makes the results all the more remarkable. After an introduction to future skills and how they can be used in entrepreneurship, there was only one requirement for the potential startup: solve a problem! No matter how big, how personal or how extensive it is. The mentors helped to shed light on the problem from different perspectives and provide support with market research. There were no thematic guidelines, only the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals served as a guideline.
Apps for better sleep and a more structured everyday life
One of these is health and well-being - a goal to which all four projects presented were dedicated. The zzzZandmann team tackled a widespread problem, namely irregular and inadequate sleep. The solution, the development of a sleep routine, is to be helped by both an app and a smart loudspeaker. The latter has the advantage of being able to do without a screen and thus without the blue light emitted by it, which disrupts the day-night rhythm. For most people, everyday life is already confusing enough anyway. As a result, procrastination, meaning the postponement of decisions and actions, is the most widespread bad habit. The Beelife app, in which an animated bee supports with self-organisation and sometimes locks the screen if you spend too long on social media, is designed to help.
Healthier living through good food and the right medication
One of life's daily challenges is preparing a healthy and tasty meal from what's in the fridge. At least that is the premise of the Hunger Guide team, which has also designed an app for this problem. It uses artificial intelligence to evaluate a photo of the contents of the fridge and compiles a recipe from it. The jury had doubts about the technical feasibility of this idea, but praised the creative and confident implementation of the pitch. This applied to all teams, who also knew the answer to every question, including critical ones. Medi Buddy made the best impression. Its app ensures that people who have to take a large number of medications do so at the right time and in the right quantity. A smart medication box is designed to provide additional help. One of the things that particularly appealed here was the idea that grandchildren should recommend the app to their grandparents.
The five-member jury, consisting of Nils Neumann from Startup Port, startup mentor René Fehrmann, Olivia Brunner from SEEd, Jan Weihrich from The SEEK and Pascal Finn Krebs from START Hamburg, made the final decision: The Medi Buddy team, consisting of four girls and one boy, will benefit from an online workshop organised by OMR. The high proportion of potential female founders is also thanks to the ProTechnicale initiative, which aims to get girls interested in STEM subjects. Combined with this weekend, this has undoubtedly proved to be successful.
