Visit to NEXTER

Only in the shade at 30 degrees! Thanks to the early summer (or late spring) high "Yannis", our visit to Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts was a sweat-inducing experience. It wasn't the only high of the two days in Hanover. We had the opportunity to get to know NEXTER. This is the StartupLab at the Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts and at the same time an exciting project for innovative and modern start-up support.

The starting point for our visit was a letter of intent sent to us by the highly imaginative head of the NEXTER project, Prof Dr Christian Lehmann, during the application phase of our own cross-university StartUP NORD°OST° project. Now it was time to intensify the contact. Christian (this happened very quickly), start-up coach Serge and the team of interns they supervised explained to us the special mixed funding from industry and the university, which enables the NEXTER team to bring start-up ideas to business maturity. Strictly speaking, the start-up idea comes from the business world. It is a concrete problem for which the students then develop a viable entrepreneurial solution during an ECTS-credited internship semester.

An example? The regional meat industry needs a method to track products throughout the entire production cycle right up to the shop counter. Together with the renowned Laser Centre in Hanover, the NEXTER team is now developing a method based on laser marking that can ultimately be used in a company start-up. The team now has one semester to do this and the necessary funding is being shared between industry and the university.

On the following day, our participation in the regular Social Entrepreneurship course, in which we were also involved, was also exciting. The teams are given a specific task (e.g. urban mobility) and now develop a business-ready solution under the guidance and support of the NEXTER coaches. One or two of the ideas developed here could well find their way into NEXTER later on.

The team from Stapellauf NORD°OST° certainly took a number of ideas home with them from Hanover and are looking forward to a return visit from the Hanoverians.