A mobile test chamber for small satellites and an AI-powered hairdressing chair: The two ideas from the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen (THM), BERT and Hairconomy, impressed the judges in the final of the "Hessen Ideas" competition, securing both the special prize and the audience award. This made THM the only university with two winning teams in the competition. The winners were honored at the awards ceremony in the Marburg locomotive shed.

The team behind BERT – Yaris Winter Jimenez, Malwin Najmadin, Leon Budimovic, and Jonas Derksen – was delighted to receive the special prize of €2,000, awarded by the jury for particularly promising and innovative ideas still in their early stages. BERT is developing a mobile test chamber for small satellites, enabling smaller manufacturers in particular to test their satellites under realistic conditions on Earth. The chamber is mobile and simulates conditions in space, including vacuum, extreme temperatures, and weightlessness, according to standardized procedures. The jury explained its decision by stating that the idea has the potential to set a new standard for sustainable and reliable space travel and thus make an important contribution to Germany's strategic future viability.

The second THMteam, Hairconomy, consisting of Salah Alnachawati, Wafaa Al Nachwati, Arthur Freye, and Osama Nouralddin, won the audience award, which was decided by the viewers on the evening of the awards ceremony. Hairconomy aims to combine artificial intelligence with traditional craftsmanship and develop an intelligent and networked hairdressing chair: Their innovative chair recognizes bookings in real time, handles appointment scheduling, digitizes processes, and automatically reorders materials.

This year's first prize, worth €10,000, went to a startup team from the University of Marburg for their project "MindShift". The team is working on a technology that specifically influences information processing in the brain and is intended for use particularly in treating depression or anxiety disorders.

Science Minister Timon Gremmels congratulated the winners and also conveyed birthday wishes: For the tenth time, the "Hessen Ideas" competition recognized outstanding startup ideas from students, researchers, and alumni of Hessian universities. The award ceremony was therefore embedded in a program that included a startup fair and a panel discussion.

This year, 40 teams from 15 universities were nominated. A jury evaluated the projects, and users simultaneously voted online for the best idea. In this way, 13 startup teams advanced to the finals, where they presented their ideas in 60-second pitches on the evening of the awards ceremony.

"Hessen Ideen" is an initiative of the state of Hesse and Hessian universities, supported by Hessian companies. Through its three pillars – the "Hessen Ideen" competition, the Hessen Ideen scholarship, the Hessen Ideen university network, and Hessen Ideen crowdfunding – the initiative aims to discover and promote entrepreneurial ideas at universities.