Pierre Büttner and Ivana Hrisova won the "Science4Life" competition with their business idea. The company founding couple - he studied civil engineering at the TH Mittelhessen, she studied business administration at the Justus-Liebig-University Gießen - is working on the marketing of an innovative sewage system under the title Variokan.

The award comes with a prize money of 25,000 euros. "Science4Life" is a competition that awards business plans from young start-up teams from all German-speaking countries. In the current award round, the jury had 82 concepts to choose from, the highest number of competing entries to date. She awarded first place to the Gießen duo.

Pierre Büttner began designing a technical solution while he was still studying civil engineering. He created the model of a rubber hose with a flexible inner structure, a V-profile that can adapt to the situation and regulate the flow rate of the sewage. You can find out more about this in the current THM magazine.