HIVE Magazine 2020

The HIVE magazine Entrepreneurship Programme University of Luxembourg Incubator

Official inauguration of the University of Luxembourg Incubator in the presence of Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, former Chamber of Commerce President Michel Wurth, former Mayor of the commune of Sanem Georges Engel as well as the former and current University’s executives: Stephane Pallage, Erica Monfardini, Yves Elsen, Romain Martin and Tonie Van Dam (March 2018)

SUMMARY

Siva Bactavatchalou, Manager of Entrepreneurship Programme, presents HIVE activities to Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, and Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Internal market, together with representatives of the European Commission during their visit to the University of Luxembourg (July 2020)

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

Pranjul Shah, Manager of University of Luxembourg Incubator, presenting our startups at the Prix Rolf Tarrach 2020 organised by Les Amis de l’Université du Luxembourg where our startups Edugamitec, GoldenMe and MeGeno also had a chance to present their enterprises (July 2020)

HIVE AT A GLANCE P.3 OUR MISSION P.7 OUR PILLARS P.8 INSPIRE P.9 DEVELOP P.15 VENTURE P.21 OUR STARTUPS P.27 COVID RESPONSE P.51 BUILDING BRIDGES P.53 CONTACT US P.54

Students at the mentoring session of the Ideation Camp 5 with Shai Haim, Associate Director of Bronica Entrepreneurship Center, Technion, Israel (October 2019)

HIVE AT A GLANCE 3

FACULTIES

6714

STUDENTS

3

HIVE AT A GLANCE

3

OFFICIAL LANGUAGES:

FRENCH, GERMAN, ENGLISH

200+ MENTORS

AND SPEAKERS

30+

ENTREPRENEURIAL EVENTS

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

3

INTERDISCIPLINARY

RESEARCH CENTRES

129

CAMPUS

268

PROFESSORS

NATIONALITIES

12

3

TH

YOUNG UNIVERSITY RANKING 2020

70+

60+

1200+

25M+

JOBS CREATED

PARTICIPANTS

STARTUP PROJECTS

STARTUP VALUATION

SIVA BACTAVATCHALOU

DR. PRANJUL SHAH

Manager of Entrepreneurship Programme

Manager of Incubator

There is a fundamental reflection on how the job market is

Looking back at the last three years, it seems that I just

changing. The leader of the future is somebody who has

blinked and the time flew!

not only the expertise in core or technical skills but is also highly adaptable and can be proactive in this job market.

On one hand, we have come so far as a community and made

Recruiters are looking for resilience and leadership, critical

our mark on entrepreneurial ecosystem of Luxembourg as the

thinking and creativity…

University of Luxembourg Incubator. We can only be proud of the fact that Luxembourg knows that we have arrived.

in

2017,

the

University

of

Luxembourg

Entrepreneurship Programme is a “handmade” programme

On the other hand, the feeling of not harnessing the full

with an powerful vision: inspire and empower our students

potential of the University community is reminiscent from

to become innovative leaders. The Programme has led

three years back. So, it is a reminder to us all to reach out

to the development of qualitative initiatives aiming to

and within the walls of the University ecosystem, to ensure

develop a transversal and entrepreneurial skillset in order

that no good or bad IDEA is left behind.

to maximize students’ employability. Our flagship 72 hours startup creation Bootcamp – Ideation Camp – is a perfect

At the incubator, we have now championed entrepreneurial

example of our teaching methods and has proved its worth.

education and supported programmes to suit the needs of all students, alumni, staff and startups at the University of

Flipping through the pages of this magazine, we can look

Luxembourg. While our intrapreneurial talents are advancing

back with pride on the past years as a time in which much

in the corporate world, we have empowered our startups

was accomplished and achieved. We have planted the seed

to conquer some of the biggest stages of Luxembourg and

of entrepreneurship in more than 1500 students, alumni and

launch products which have reached all corners of the world.

staff and, our community is growing every day. All of this would have never been possible without professionals from

This inaugural edition of the magazine is a tribute to all

all horizons and the vibrant entrepreneurial and startup

the hard work and outpouring support that our students,

ecosystem in Luxembourg sharing their know-how and

entrepreneurs, supporters, mentors, founding partners at

expertise with our community. We are also very grateful to

FNR, donors and the HIVE team has put in. We also owe

our Rectorate, FNR, and donors for their continued support

this success to the leadership at the Rectorate who have

and faith in our vision. The Entrepreneurship Programme

and continue to put their trust in our ability to drive the

would not have been what it is today without the support

entrepreneurial mission of the University forward.

of everyone.

For all of our supporters and everyone in our community, this first edition of our annual HIVE magazine is dedicated to all of you. In so many ways, you’ve driven this Entrepreneurship Programme forward. We are thankful for each and every one of you.

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HIVE AT A GLANCE

Created

THE PACKAGE FOR THE STARTUPS INCUBATED AT THE BELVAL CAMPUS COMPRISES OF: Access to the full infrastructure at the Incubator building Access to the greater University infrastructure

— The University of Luxembourg Incubator also offers a range of services to startups which are part of the University community.

HIVE IN A GLANCE

5

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

Mentoring with experienced entrepreneurs and professional experts Access to a widespread business network inside Luxembourg and even beyond the national borders

Office space Administrative support Visibility through the University of Luxembourg media channels Visibility via showcases at other events organized by the Incubator and their partners Access to state of the art prototyping facilities at our Fab lab

— Incubator is not just a place, it is a community of people passionate about innovation. We miss the times when we could meet and celebrate together like last Christmas.

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HIVE IN A GLANCE

Watch video

OUR MISSION

Entrepreneurship Programme and University of Luxembourg Incubator together form the HIVE team.

OUR MISSION

7

Left to right: Pranjul Shah, Liza Shliakhova, Linda Jaerling, Siva Bactavatchalou.

TO CHAMPION ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE 3 rd INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN THE GRAND DUCHY TO MENTOR AND TO EDUCATE ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERS WHO WILL CREATE GREAT ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL VALUE FOR LUXEMBOURG

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

TO FOCUS ON TRANSVERSAL SKILLSET DEVELOPMENT BEYOND CORE EDUCATION TO EMBED THE UNIVERSITY AND ITS RESEARCH CENTRES AND FACULTIES INTO THE LUXEMBOURG ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM ACTING AS A LINK BETWEEN THE WORLD OF EDUCATION AND THE BUSINESS WORLD

OUR PILLARS

Our services offered to the University community are divided into three main pillars, each targeting students, alumni and employees at different awareness and competence levels:

DEVELOP

VENTURE

WAKE UP DORMANT ENTREPRENEURS

SUPPORT PROCESS FROM IDEA TO BUSINESS PLAN

MENTORING UNTIL ENTREPRENEURS CAN SURVIVE INDEPENDENTLY

DEVELOPMENT AND THEMATIC WORKSHOPS P.16

PITCHING EVENTS WITH INVESTORS P.22

WELCOME DAY P.10 INSPIRATIONAL

WORKSHOPS P.11

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN PRACTICE P.18

PITCH & PIZZAS P.12

INTRODUCTION TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP P.20

IDEATION CAMP P.14

SUMMER SCHOOL P.21

VENTURE MENTORING SERVICE (VMS) P.24 INCUBATION P.26 ACCELERATION PROGRAMME P.27

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OUR PILLARS

INSPIRE

WELCOME DAY To celebrate the start of the academic year and offer guidance to new students, University of Luxembourg invites all new students to a Welcome Day that takes place in a relaxed atmosphere in mid of September on Belval Campus. The Welcome Day normally combines a series of social events, sports activities, workshops and info sessions.

In the frame of the Entrepreneurship Programme, HIVE team organises fun activities related to entrepreneurship, including Marshmallow Challenge, a collaborative activity where teams of students are given a task to build the tallest freestanding structure that will support the weight of one marshmallow, and other teambuilding activities.

OBJECTIVES

INSPIRE – WELCOME DAY

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Ensure that all students participating in the Welcome Day activities understand that the University offers entrepreneurial support through initiatives offered

by HIVE

Maximize outreach of the Entrepreneurship programme to grow the entrepreneurial community at the University

...IN 2020

312

REGISTRATIONS

100

PARTICIPANTS

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

INSPIRATIONAL WORKSHOPS

INSPIRE

In order to wake up dormant entrepreneurs and give them the first impression of business environment and networking, HIVE organised a number of inspirational workshops.

INCLUDING

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BUILD A UNICORN with keynote speaker Nick Ogden, CEO of ClearBank (the UK’s first new clearing bank in more than 250 years which was built from scratch)

NORDIC METHOD OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP with Human Shojaee, CEO of Venture Cup Denmark

HOW TO BUILD A ONE BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY with Rafi Nave, Head of Entrepreneurship Center at Technion

LIGHTHOUSE TALK with Prof. Ted Zoller, Entrepreneur and Expert in Venturing and Education

INSPIRE – INSPIRATIONAL WORKSHOPS

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PITCH & PIZZA PROGRAMME Pitch&Pizza event is timed to allow students to join during their lunch break and offers networking opportunities at the beginning. Then to show the audience student startup success stories made possible by the HIVE team’s support, a round table with startup founders was offered.

After that the registered participants have a chance to hit the stage and present their innovative ideas to an expert jury composed of entrepreneurs.

They provide feedback about how to pursue the ideas presented further, what to particularly pay attention to in order to make it a success, etc.

INSPIRE – PITCH & PIZZA PROGRAMME

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HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

INSPIRE

Two editions were organized on February and October 2019.

Below the list of our supports during the two editions:

MODERATORS Mara Kroth (GoldenMe), François Sprumont (Movesion), Alessandro Zerbini (student ambassador of the Incubator)

FOUNDER ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS: Simone La Torre (Wafer Messenger), Alena Podaneva Pick&Cook), Himadri Pathak CheckMath), Philip Grother (Stepping Stone), Joni Beu (student ambassador), Varvara Markina (Megeno), Umer Wasim (Devseis)

EXPERT JURY MEMBERS: Carolina De Léon Brooks (Jobtailors, Incubator), Pranjul Shah, Simone La Torre, Philip Grother, Nicole Monti (Technoport)

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INSPIRE – PITCH & PIZZA PROGRAMME

SUPPORTERS

IDEATION CAMP Ideation camp is an intense 72 hour learning-by-doing workshop in which students get a glimpse of the life and traits of an entrepreneur by working in cross disciplinary teams to tackle challenges, come up with solutions, assess and present their ideas.

In multinational teams, the participants work on innovative business ideas, supported by dedicated mentors from the Luxembourgish entrepreneurship ecosystem as well as industry experts.

On the final day of the camp, the ideas are presented to a versatile jury, composed of members of the Rectorate of the University, investors and entrepreneurs.

So far HIVE organized six editions of the Ideation Camp.

INSPIRE - IDEATION CAMP

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FOR MORE VIDEOS, CHECK OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Here is the Ideation Camp 6 as experienced by the participants.

Watch video

Here is the Ideation Camp 6 as experienced by the mentors.

Watch video

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

INSPIRE

40% FEMALE AND 60% MALE PARTICIPANTS

285

TOTAL MENTORS

265

PARTICIPANTS

24,9

AVERAGE AGE OF PARTICIPANTS

85

UNIQUE MENTORS

57

TEAMS FORMED

97

%

PARTICIPANTS WOULD

RECOMMEND THE IDEATION CAMP

99

STARTUPS COMING OUT OF THE IDEATION CAMPS OVER THE YEARS INCLUDE CHECKMATH, EDUGAMITECH, GOLDENME, HAPPY LOCAL, OUR CHOICE, TECHNOPTIZ AND MANY OTHERS

%

MENTORS OVERAL EXPERIENCE

& INTEREST IN PARTICIPATING TO NEXT IDEATION CAMPS

14

INSPIRE - IDEATION CAMP

6

EDITIONS

DEVELOPMENT AND THEMATIC WORKSHOPS THEMATIC WORKSHOPS

In order to provide students with all the tools and information necessary to build and run a successful business, HIVE team organised a variety of thematic workshops.

One of them was an information event GROW YOUR BUSINESS, GROW YOUR TEAM WITH FIT4ENTREPRENEURSHIP in partnership with ADEM. ADEM is Agence pour le développement de l’emploi. This workshop was organised with the support of Technoport, a technology oriented business incubator.

DEVELOP – DEVELOPMENT AND THEMATIC WORKSHOPS

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DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS

LEGO SERIOUS PLAY a workshop organised in order to help students develop business relevant skills as they play and gain useful insights into customer orientation SALES LIFE CYCLE WORKSHOP a simple sales lifecycle span from creating awareness for a product to the closure of a deal with customers. To know this cycle and how to execute the steps is crucial to ensure successful sales; this workshop, amply supported with practical examples, will not only provide highly valuable insights to students interested in working as sales representatives later. It is equally a great fit for (aspiring) entrepreneurs eager to know more about how to reach their customers and get their products to the market

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

DEVELOP

MASTERCLASS WITH BILL AULET , Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship at MIT and Professor of Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management and MIT Sloan Executive Education. Bill is also the author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup

Bill Aulet is changing the way entrepreneurship is understood, taught and practiced around the world. He is an award winning educator and author whose current work is built on the foundation of his 25 year successful business career (first at IBM and then as a three times serial entrepreneur).

His book Disciplined Entrepreneurship, released in August 2013, has been translated into over 18 languages and has been the content for three online edX courses which have been taken by hundreds of thousands of people in 199 different countries.

During his two days’ masterclass hosted by HIVE in 2019, Bill explored together with participants all the crucial steps to building a successful startup: from the primary market research to the importance of a team.

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DEVELOP – DEVELOPMENT AND THEMATIC WORKSHOPS

During this time, he directly raised over a 100 million dollars and, more importantly, created hundreds of millions of dollars of shareholder value through his companies.

Since 2009, he has been responsible for leading the development of entrepreneurship education across MIT at the Martin Trust Center.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN PRACTICE The Entrepreneurship in Practice is an immersive and interactive 120 hours course designed to test students’ entrepreneurial appetite and jumpstart their entrepreneurial adventure.

For the University of Luxembourg students this course is worth 5 ECTS credits towards their degree.

Whether students want to ignite their entrepreneurial spirit or get just enough flavor of entrepreneurship to flourish as intrapreneurs within any organization, they will learn the necessary building blocks to excel.

Designed for non-business students, through this approach the Entrepreneurship in Practice strives to create a learning and living environment that encourages students to become mature and well- grounded individuals and successful leaders in both business and the community. Combining teamwork, workshops, videos, lectures and serious games, we bring highly respected experts, entrepreneurs and professionals.

DEVELOP – ENTREPENEURSHIP IN PRACTICE

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HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

DEVELOP

TRACK 1

TRACK 2

TRACK 3

40 HOURS 1 WEEK

40 HOURS 10 WEEKS

40 HOURS 1 WEEK

MAKING INNOVATION HAPPEN

DISCIPLINED ENTREPRENEURSHIP

LEARN ABOUT INNOVATION & BUSINESS AND HOW TO BE AN INTRA/ENTRE-PRENEUR

THE ULTIMATE ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGE

DESIGN AND BUILD A SOLID FOUNDATION FOR A NEW BUSINESS TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT VENTURE - 10 SESSIONS OF 4 HOURS EA LEVEL OF SUCCESS

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DEVELOP – ENTREPENEURSHIP IN PRACTICE

— “It’s not just an extracurricular course it was way more than that! Workshops, lectures, real-life case studies, and even team games made the difficult path of entrepreneurship feel like an insightful and easy journey.

What made this more interesting was also the different experiences shared by professionals coming from the Luxembourgish ecosystem. All the participants formed a huge network and a strong knowledge base.” - Joni Beu, Bachelor in Economics and Management.

INTRODUCTION TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP The Introduction to Entrepreneurship is an interactive 25 hours course designed to test researchers’ entrepreneurial appetite and jumpstart their entrepreneurial adventure.

Whether researchers want to ignite their entrepreneurial spirit or get just enough flavor of entrepreneurship to flourish as entrepreneurs within any organization, they will learn the basic building blocks to excel.

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THE FOLLOWING Deconstructing your PhDs: comparative analysis of researcher and entrepreneur WORKSHOPS ARE ORGANIZED DURING Release brakes and anchor motivation THE COURSE

DEVELOP – INTRODUCTION TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Unlock your PhD project Mapping your research project with the Business Model Canvas Build your own Disciplined Entrepreneurship Canvas based for your specific research project How to build a financial model?

How to pitch?

How to create a startup in Luxembourg?

Four offline editions of Introduction to Entrepreneurship were organised so far. For each edition, around 25 students registered and we are considering to increase the number of sessions due to the high demand for this course.

The last edition of the course had to go online and saw even higher registration rate event though it was not in the original format with 22 students successfully graduating from the course.

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

SUMMER SCHOOL

DEVELOP

The International Summer School on Knowledge-Driven Innovation and Entrepreneurship was founded by the University of Luxembourg to teach entrepreneurial skills to university students in an extreme hands-on environment. Our mission is to build a bridge between the University and the entrepreneurial world.

Through this approach, the Summer School strives to create a learning and living environment. It encourages participants to grow in maturity, become wellgrounded individuals and successful leaders, both in business and in the community.

The Summer School is an advanced one-week programme on entrepreneurship and innovation in which you experience the full innovation and entrepreneurship cycle that provides you knowledge, skills, tools and support to create your own startup.

What is the value that you are trying to create using your research or knowhow? [MEANING] How to design the business model of your venture? [MODEL] Do you have a good understanding of your customer and have you identified the beachhead? [MARKET] How much funding do you need and have you quantified the risk-reward?

[MONEY] How to resource the execution? [MANAGEMENT] What are the key make or break instances of your venture journey?

[MILESTONE]

Through this 6M model, participants become aware of: how to create value in a competitive landscape; how to create a new business based on original technology ideas; understand that using innovation to create a new business is a realistic career choice for those who choose to pursue it.

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DEVELOP – SUMMER SCHOOL

IN ESSENCE, PARTICIPANTS WILL ANSWER 6 KEY QUESTIONS:

PITCHING EVENTS WITH INVESTORS We are supporting ventures in every possible way until entrepreneurs can survive independently in the business world.

VENTURE – PITCHING EVENTS WITH INVESTORS

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HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

VENTURE

One of the good stepping stones on this stage of their journey are pitching events with investors such as: FUND RAISING SESSION ORGANIZED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH LBAN, Business Angels Association in Luxembourg GLOBAL VENTURES SUMMIT LUXEMBOURG, organised in partnership with LHoFT the Luxembourg edition was the first GVS event in Europe ARCH SUMMIT, in partnership with Tomorrow Street, Vodafone; the premier event for connecting tech startups and scaleups with corporate decision makers

A VISIT OF STOKR a digital marketplace built on blockchain to create independent access to a new age of capital markets organized by HIVE to allow our startups to pitch in front of the experienced investors By invitation by LCSB some of our biotech startups like Megeno and Nium pitched in front of NEWTON BIOCAPITAL, a Venture Capital Fund incorporated in Belgium, focused on financing biotech and life science projects in Europe and Japan for the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases

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VENTURE – PITCHING EVENTS WITH INVESTORS

FALLING WALLS LAB LUXEMBOURG WITH KEYNOTE SPEAKER MARTIN BELL, a global startup advisor, angel investor, and Founder & CEO of Bell Ventures

VENTURE MENTORING SERVICE (VMS) Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) of the University of Luxembourg Incubator helps University’s entrepreneurs to turn their entrepreneurial ideas into thriving businesses by leveraging on the experience of seasoned entrepreneurs and corporate leaders. Developed as a sister programme to MIT’s mentoring service, VMS provides timely, tailored support and access to a team of industry experts relevant to the imminent needs of the ventures. The VMS Programme has an educational focus and the goal is to provide entrepreneurs with the tools, knowledge and network to boost their chance at success, whether they are serial entrepreneurs working on their next big thing or if they have no previous experience of starting a business. VMS Programme’s mission is to create the next generation of entrepreneurs and to guide them on their journey of entrepreneurship.

VENTURE – VENTURING MENTORING SERVICE (VMS)

23

Every startup which joins VMS Programme must undergo a basic training to learn the core theoretical and practical aspects of entrepreneurship in parallel to being mentored by an expert mentoring team.

There are three stages to the Programme: Pre-Seed, Seed and Venture. At the Pre-seed stage, the mentoring team works with entrepreneurs on market research, opportunity identification, business models and strategy. At the Seed stage, VMS team prepares startups for more actionable steps after market validation, building prototypes and launching a pilot. Once a successful pilot has been launched, the entrepreneurs move onto the Venture stage where they register their company and start operating as a small business and eventually grow. This way VMS team makes sure that they support entrepreneurs through all the phases from ideation to international scaling.

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TOTAL MENTORS

30

STARTUP IDEAS

750+ YEARS OF

COMBINED EXPERIENCE

100+

MENTORING SESSIONS

Find out more about the programme Watch video

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

VENTURE

AIDA MAY

JACKYE ELOMBO

NURIA SOLER AGUILAR

ALBERTA BRUSI

LAURENT FRIDERES

PASCAL WISCOUR-CONTER

ATTILA LENGYEL

LUIS FELIPE PARRA

PEDRO CASTILHO

CÉCILE BURGHARD

LUISA TANZI

PEDRO FARIA

CHRISTA CANTIENI

LYNETTE STOLTZFUS

RACHEL TREECE

CLAUDIO CAVATORTA

MARC JACOBS

SAFOUANE JAOUID

DANIELA CEDOLA

MARCO AUREGGI

SEBASTIEN WIERTZ

EDGAR MILIC

MICHAEL PECHNER

SHARON MARCH

ERICA MONFARDINI

MICHEL RZONZEF

VADIM ZENDEJAS

VENTURE – VENTURING MENTORING SERVICE (VMS)

24

INCUBATION With one simple email, regardless of their faculty, industry sector or stage of their project, any of our 6000+ University students and staff members can unlock doors to the whole range of trainings and services offered by the University of Luxembourg Incubator. The incubator has become the bridge connecting University research to innovation by widening horizons for our students and researchers. We inspire our changemakers and student leaders to act definitively.

Every startup project receives tailored support and advice via expert mentoring fitted to their individual needs. Additionally, the startups can leverage the local and international network of the Incubator to test their product market-fit, accelerate their growth, enhance their visibility and find suitable investor connects.

VENTURE – INCUBATION

25

The startups greatly benefit from the tightknit local startup ecosystem in Luxembourg. The University Incubator acts as a bridge to also ensure that when ready - the mature startups transition to the local partner incubators or acceleration programmes and benefit from their market positioning.

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

ACCELERATION PROGRAMME

VENTURE

Our Acceleration Programme called “UL Stars ” is a global immersive accelerator to boost technology transfer and commercialization. Given the size of the Luxembourg market, for many startups it will only be a foundational ground and eventually the need to look into other markets arises. This is why HIVE team initiated the Acceleration Programme to support their startups in three main directions (3T methodology):

TEAM

DIFFICULT TO FIND THE RIGHT TEAM LOCALLY TO SUPPORT THE INITAL STAGES OF

TRACTION

TESTING THE MARKET TO IDENTIFY THE RIGHT NICHE MARKET AND THE VIABLE PRODUCT

CONCEPT

VENTURE CREATION AND MARKET POSITIONING

LAUNCH STRATEGY TO GAIN THE MARKET VALIDATION

TRANSITION

SETTING UP THE LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT TEAM TO EXECUTE THE FUNDRAISING PLAN AND TRANSITIONING INTO A GROWTH VENTURE

The outcome for the participating startups would be international exposure, customised strategy and eventually commercialisation.

INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE AND GLOBAL OUTLOOK

MEETING UNMET NEED IN LUXEMBOURG

CUSTOMIZED AND TAILORED NEEDS OF EACH STARTUP

UNPRECEDENTED ACCESS TO INVESTORS

WIN - WIN - WIN

VENTURE – ACCELARATION PROGRAMME

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OUR STARTUPS BIOTECH

27

FOODTECH

DEEPBIOMODELING

FOOD 4 ALL

MEGENO

HAPPY LOCAL

ORGANOTHERAPEUTICS

NIUM

OUR STARTUPS

PICK AND COOK

EDUTECH CHECKMATH EDUGAMITEC MAGRID

GREENTECH OUR CHOICE

INDUSTRY AUTOMATION ASETS-LUX COGNIFYER

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

LEGAL

DEVSEIS

SPORTS ATHLIKA

ZESTYLAWYER

SOCIAL ALLGEMENGWUEL AGENCE GOLDEN ME INTANGIBLE WORLD HERITAGE ORGANIZATION PATLUX VISIBILITY STEM AFRICA

TOURISM SIMPLEVIU

OUR STARTUPS

28

ALLGEMENGWUEL AGENCE Allgemengwuel Agence (Agency for the Common Good) specialises in sustainability reporting and incentivises companies to maximize their contribution to the common good. Allgemengwuel Agence helps their clients to define the common good, to analyse their contributions, to make progress, to communicate their efforts, and to receive ECG certifications. Allgemengwuel Agence organises workshops, conducts interviews, writes reports and spreads the word through social media and the press.

OUR STARTUPS

29

GREGOR WALTERSDORFER

CEO

— “VMS programme helped me to summarize and reflect on what I did over the last few years and what the potential could be.”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

The founder of Allgemengwuel Agence, Gregor Waltersdorfer, three years ago became self-employed with the topic of his PhD from the University of Luxembourg.

Gregor is particularly proud that Allgemengwuel Agence helped the first commune in Luxembourg to become a commune for economics. “There were only nine out of the worldwide communes from German speaking countries. It is the first Luxembourgish.” – he says. “The clients of Allgemengwuel Agence become more credible and future-proof while also increasing their customer loyalty and brand value. Along the way, the Allgemengwuel Agence clients lead by example to build a better economy, which is for the benefit of all.”

ASETS-LUX ASETS-LUX is creating web-based cloud solutions for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) sector to accelerate design engineering cycles by 70%.

ASETS-LUX assists the engineering companies in a smart way by providing them a platform that helps them to simplify the process and arrive at the solution quick.

They work with EPC companies engaged in design and engineering of on-shore and off-shore plants. ASETSLUX provides an integrated, intelligent, optimized and predictive analysis and design web platform, delivered via a secure cloud-based platform. This web platform allows engineers to design accurately considering all exhaustive multiple options from the beginning.

ASETS-LUX is among the selected ventures for The Startup School organised by NexCubed3 in San Francisco.

ASHWINI OKE

CEO

— “My experience with the Incubator is great! Well-organized meeting rooms and a very warm staff with motivating management.”

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OUR STARTUPS

The founder of ASETS-LUX Ashwini Oke, has 20 years background in the petrochemical and oil and gas sector. Being in the technical sector for so long, she realized that there’s software for a lot of different things but when it comes to the plant engineering, there is no one single plug solution.

Having identified this need, Ashwini created the company and found partners within the University of Luxembourg who helped her to build the solution.

ATHLIKA Athlika is a sport management agency which focuses on assisting professional athletes to reach their goals easier, faster and more effectively. Athlika also provides marketing and sponsorship opportunities for businesses, brands and other stakeholders in the sport industry.

Reza Arjomand, a serial entrepreneur, professional tennis coach and a founder of Athlika, through his own experience and that of his friends identified the gap in the industry related to the sponsorship issues which professional athletes often face in their career.

REZA ARJOMAND

CEO

OUR STARTUPS

31

— “I really appreciate everything that Incubator and Entrepreneurship Programme did to me already through mentorship programme and the network is a valuable asset to me too”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

As a part of his dissertation for the Master’s degree from the University of Luxembourg, Reza decided to do a business plan with an extensive market research for his startup Athlika which would eventually address this identified need. Now Reza graduated from the University with market size for his startup already estimated and competitor analyses done.

Currently, Athlika is hosted in the University of Luxembourg Incubator and is part of its mentorship programme, VMS. At present, Athlika specialises in tennis with a goal of extending their services to the rest of the other sports in the coming years.

COGNIFYER Cognifyer is a provider of embedded network design tools in the automotive and aerospace domains.

Cognifyer develops technologies, software IP blocks and complete automated design flows at any stage of maturity: concept, proof-of-concept implementation, pilot or production. Cognifyer is unlocking the power of generative design for electrical/electronic architectures with design automation technologies based on goals and domain knowledge.

Serial entrepreneur, Nicolas already had two companies before he established Cognifyer at the University of Luxembourg Incubator in 2018. Nicolas believes that is was a good timing to start such a business in terms of techniques in the industry as it took them only two years to apply such techniques to design systems.

Now Nicolas is looking for a partner to bring the product to the market together.

NICOLAS NAVET

CEO

— “University of Luxembourg Incubator helped me to facilitate the creation of the company and now I am surrounded by like-minded people which is going to be beneficial in terms of building the team”

Cognifyer

32

OUR STARTUPS

CEO of Cognifyer, Nicolas Navet, Deputy-Head of the Department of Computer Science and Professor in Computer Science, says that his primary objective is to contribute to the techniques, tools and computing platforms that will make it possible to build provably safe systems in a time, resources and cost-efficient manner.

CHECKMATH CheckMath is an app that scans and checks the student’s steps to any math problem giving them valuable feedback. Currently, CheckMath assists students aged 10 to 16 all the way from basic addition to logarithms.

HIMADRI PATHAK

CEO

OUR STARTUPS

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— “The Ideation Camp was the reason why I started my own business, without that I would not have the confidence to do it… I am also very grateful to be a part of the VMS programme now. I was very very lucky and that’s because it really is a great journey!”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

CheckMath was born from the struggles of the present and past generations in mathematics. Now students can get automated solutions to their questions on their phones and yet it lacks feedback on a personal level.

CheckMath gives students the autonomy to explore mathematical problems in their own creative ways and provides personalized feedback, thus motivating them in their self-learning journey.

Himadri Pathak, CEO of CheckMath, was a computer science student doing coding projects when during her Master’s she took part in the Ideation Camp as well as Startup Weekend Luxembourg, both of which she won! “That gave me the motivation to do something of my own.” – she says.

She decided to start an EdTech company CheckMath and in just a couple of years they had the app ready and a lot of users on board. The team is currently working on the next release to improve the app.

DEEPBIOMODELING DeepBioModeling is a biology-focused data science company with a strong motivation to impact the development of personalized medicine. The startup is dedicated to helping researchers worldwide to achieve the best outcomes and create translatable medical innovations with robust, timely results and expert advice. DeepBioModeling collaborates with pharma, biotech, and academia to validate targets, repurpose existing drugs, study mechanisms of action, predict biomarkers, and facilitate drug discovery.

Sebastien De Landtsheer, a founder of DeepBioModeling, originally a biologist who then decided to study informatics and now uses his expertise in software development to achieve the current standards in software engineering to help his peer scientists to make their new ideas and algorithms available to the scientific community in a way that maximizes collaborations and citations.

SEBASTIEN DE LANDTSHEER

CEO

— “My experience with the Incubator has been very positive: nearly free office in the startup environment and access to the mentoring programme”

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OUR STARTUPS

Their goal is to establish a series of integrated analysis pipelines to combine datasets with existing knowledge to leverage high-level features into a machine learning framework. The startup delivers this technology to fasten the development of innovative cures and diagnostic tools for the benefit of individual patients.

DEVSEIS Devseis provides a very user-friendly automated services to European enterprises to deal with substantially increasing compliance cost of the General data protection regulation (GDPR). Devseis delivers software as a service solution which examines the personal data processing operations of the enterprise to identify and assess risks that can violate rights and freedom of a person.

OUR STARTUPS

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DR. MUHAMMAD UMER WASIM

CEO

— “The great thing about the Incubator is that they really made me feel very confident.

They are super helpful!”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

Dr. Muhammad Umer Wasim, the founder and CEO of Devseis, has over 8 years of multinational experience that extends in the domain of information and communication technology, law, and innovation. He has acquired an operational knowledge with dedicated experience in information security and data privacy audits, consultancy, risk advisory, and legal compliance (GDPR).

With the support of his four experienced advisory partners, Umer set up Devseis in 2018. The startup now combines world-class expertise with high-quality services to help startups and other enterprises to meet their business challenges in the domain of information security and data privacy. The services include professional audit, consulting, risk advisory, and legal compliance (GDPR), regardless of field of activity or industry sector.

EDUGAMITEC EduGamiTec is bridging education with new technologies. The idea was first born out of the HIVE’s flagship event Ideation Camp. EduGamiTec’s solution Memomoti enables users to insert personalized educational content into entertaining games. It improves the motivation for learning and transforms children’s screen time into meaningful outcomes.

This year EduGamiTec reached a huge milestone by securing its first round of funding and bringing Neil Ward, former COO of Skype, onto its board.

Their aspiration is to bring personalised education into the lives of every person regardless of their age and background in a way that they don’t even notice that they were thought and enjoy the process.

GIRA SZAKMÁR

CEO

— “The University of Luxembourg Incubator was always really supportive of me and my startup. The events and mentors bring a lot of value and being surrounded by peers really helps as well”

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OUR STARTUPS

Memomoti is an easy-to-use platform where you can take any content you need to memorize and insert it into digital games to increase motivation in learning.

The game statistics and AI driven assessment system adjust the difficulty of the games to each child’s current needs. The machine learning based system is first fed by the educational content provided and validated by the users, with the future capability of automatically ingesting open source educational data pools.

FOOD4ALL (F4A) F4A provides a win-win solution to the issue of food waste on a supermarket level. F4A services allow their partners to generate profit out of their losses while enabling their customers to have access to best before-date products at reduced prices on a larger scale.

ILANA DEVILLERS

CEO

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— “All the help that I needed – the VMS programme gave it. This programme is really important because they match you with mentors who can help you with your specific question”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

Ilana Devillers joined VMS programme when she was still a student. Living on a tight budget and trying to eat healthy, she also saw that supermarkets wasting a lot of products that could be put to a better use.

Ilana felt that it was time to act and created F4A as her response to both issues – food waste and demand for more accessible healthy food.

Now F4A services directly contribute to reducing the food waste. Moreover, F4A’s daily recipes are perfectly matched with the products available to help final users to better their culinary skills and to eat healthier.

F4A were awarded “Startup of the Year” in 2019 and were amongst the 10 worldwide finalists selected to be part of the Nasdaq COVID-19 Solution Summer Milestone Makers Programme in 2020.

GOLDENME

MARA KROTH AND JOHANNES HEUSCHKEL

Co-founders

— “VMS gives you an external point of view which is very helpful because mentors can see our progress and they challenge us while providing an objective feedback”

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OUR STARTUPS

GoldenMe has a vision to prevent loneliness in older age through digital education. Their active community for people aged 55+ revolves around events to improve the members’ digital literacy via lectures and workshops with topics like social media, smartphone use and similar. Bringing younger and older generations together is a focal point of this non-profit organization because they believe that the moment one generation learns from the other creates empathy and brings them even closer together.

During the pandemic, the intergenerational online mindfulness class, given by 78-year old GoldenMember Dr. Marie-Paule Theisen, brought well-being home to GoldenMembers, as well as students. Additionally, the GoldenPaper, an interactive e-paper, is delivered to the GoldenMembers once a month to update them on recent events, digital topics, interesting articles and events to come.

The two founders, Mara Kroth and Johannes Heuschkel, started their entrepreneurial journey at the University of Luxembourg, where Mara won one of the Ideation Camps. The team decided to work for customers aged 55+, pre-retirees or already retired, because their mission is to „redefine age by embracing retirees“. Their vision is to integrate their organization into the Luxembourgish ecosystem for baby boomers.

HAPPY LOCAL Happy Local is a mobile platform that favors farmers who produce local products and help to distribute to the local consumers. Happy Local focuses on organic, plastic-free and zero waste for a better consumption of products and food in order to take care of the planet and secure a better future for everyone.

SAM ABDI

CEO

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— “Venture Mentoring Service is a great programme and I suggested it to many of my friends, though of course you need a courage to actually take a step and try to become an entrepreneur”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

To provide local producers with required support, Happy Local helps to increase their visibility and revenue while providing a better transparency of food resources. Sam Abdi, founder of Happy Local, is an IT student at the University of Luxembourg who is also passionate about connecting nature and technology using his computer science knowledge.

“Consuming local products has many social, financial and environmental advantages: it encourages local economy, helps create jobs, preserve heritage, reduce carbon footprints of food transportation, reduce food waste of supermarkets, keep the cash flow within the local economy...” – says Sam. “Consumers are choosing to buy locally more and more, whether it is in their own city on a daily basis or while traveling abroad.”

INTANGIBLE WORLD HERITAGE ORGANIZATION Intangible World Heritage Organization (IWHO) preserves and promotes cultural heritage and indigenous knowledge of sustainable practices, adapts them to bridge with modernity demands, and develops tools to remove barriers of exchange. IWHO aims at enriching accumulative knowledge by documenting, preserving and promoting endangered intangible heritage, supporting cultural diversity and removing barriers of exchange as well as empowering marginalized communities and endorsing sustainable development.

Recently, IWHO performed for TedX UL 2020 and received an agreement for their project “BELONG” to participate in European Capital of Cultures (ESCH22).

BELONG aims at utilizing global folkloric arts to create synergies between multicultural and multidisciplinary artistic forms

ADHAM AL-SAYYAD

CEO

— “Ever since we were hosted by the Incubator, their close mentorship alongside their strong network connections have significantly boosted our success.”

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OUR STARTUPS

The founder of IWHO, Adham Al-Sayyad, is a Doctoral Candidate in Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Luxembourg. Adham’s passion is traditional culture which made him spend a few years in social justice culture. He is also a musician playing on traditional instruments from his home country, Egypt. “Similar to bio-diversity, cultural diversity is essential to continued life on this planet. The fragility of a globally homogenized paradigm lies in its rigidity to change, putting the global community in serious risks when threatened by environmental or socioeconomic challenges.” – says Adham.

MAGRID Magrid is an effective pedagogical programme for improving the development of early visual-spatial and mathematical abilities. Magrid provides an individual learning environment in which a student can repeat instructions for their individual learning pace to increase learners’ confidence in math.

TAHEREH PAZOUKI

CEO

OUR STARTUPS

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— “As an entrepreneur, you mostly find yourself alone and knowing that there are people that you can just write or call and talk to them and share your problems, this is really nice”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

Tahereh Pazouki, a founder of Magrid, was doing her PhD at the Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences of University of Luxembourg working on why there are young students in Luxembourg that are not performing as well in mathematical abilities in comparison to other countries. Through the scientific testing, Tahereh identified that this is related to the number of languages which students in Luxembourg have to master and it has the biggest impact on nonative students.

Based on those findings, Magrid was created to address those issues. By visualizing the mathematical concepts and ideas, Magrid makes early mathematical instruction intuitive and accessible to all children regardless of their language proficiency. The interactive design of Magrid, allows students to take an active role and in building their knowledge that boosts learners’ self-esteem, self-awareness, and engagement in the learning process.

MEGENO Megeno protects and expands the lifecycle of personal genome data - empowering the individual, as well as the associated stakeholders, with evidence-based, actionable genomic solutions for a lifetime. They focus on continuous personalised disease prevention based on genome and believe that a person’s DNA serves as a prerequisite for health management by turning genome into a lifelong asset.

Megeno has also engaged EY Luxembourg who, in the context of its EYnovation programme, will provide strategic advice on the positioning of Megeno’s digital product offering within the EU’s healthcare sector and on the development of a robust governance and oversight mechanism for its services.

Megeno contributes to a rising awareness for personalised disease prevention among health care providers and the general population. Megeno enables personalised prevention strategies based on lifestyle intervention. Together with academic researchers, the evidence base for medical disease prevention is strengthened, helping public healthcare systems handle the ever-increasing amounts of genetic disease risk information.

ERICH FELBER

CEO

— “The Incubator provided us with the first home. You always need to have your own home where you as a startup feel welcome, where you get the support that is required, you need to have an environment that is stimulating”

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OUR STARTUPS

Recently Megeno and the University of Luxembourg’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust signed a partnership agreement on the development of user-centred, transparent and secure genome data services.

NIUM Nium provides personalized dietary recommendations based on each individual’s unique metabolism.

They predict personal metabolic response using a computational model and utilize this technology for nutritional recommendations for the prevention and treatment of diet-related diseases. Nium’s platform is the basis of a service that delivers a metabolic and gut microbiome analysis supporting decision in clinical nutrition to health professionals and individuals. This will allow personalized nutritional recommendations through an interactive dashboard such as mobile app.

OUR STARTUPS

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ALBERTO NORONHA AND ADAM SELAMNIA

Co-founders

— “We benefit a lot from staying at the Incubator, it provides us the soft start and easy transition from being a student or being a researcher to becoming an entrepreneur.”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

Alberto Noronha, Founder and CEO of Nium, through his research project identified that individual responses to food are difficult to predict and wanted to change this. His partner, Adam Selamnia, has an almost 20 years professional journey as a serial entrepreneur and Strategic Advisor in the field of HealthTech. Their vision for the future of healthcare is that each individual will have access the best tailored treatment possible and the nutrition will play a central role in this with Nium being one of the leaders in that change.

In 2020 Nium won Startup Stories round 3 by Paperjam and was part of the 2020 cohorts of EIT Food Accelerator Network and MassChallenge at the Lausanne Hub. Nium is also launching their app Nutrida in January 2021!

ORGANOTHERAPEUTICS OrganoTherapeutics uses cutting-edge humanspecific mini-brains for the discovery and development of effective drug candidates targeting Parkinson’s disease. OrganoTherapeutics screens new molecules on their proprietary human-specific minibrains which represent a model mimicking faithfully the human Parkinson’s disease pathology.

OrganoTherapeutics aims at developing new drug candidates against Parkinson’s disease which are tested in state-of-the art 3D patient models.

OrganoTherapeutics has developed first own proprietary drug candidates and has access to attractive libraries for further screening.

OrganoTherapeutics is focusing completely on human patient specific in vitro samples. It is important to add that OrganoTherapeutics are not conducting own animal experiments and strive to reduce and replace animal experiments in drug development as much as possible.

JAVIER JARAZO

Co-Founder

— “Incubator helped us a lot. For example, when we needed some legal support, etc…

Incubator was always ready to make the link with people that could help us”

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OUR STARTUPS

Two founders of OrganoTherapeutics, Javier Jarazo and Jens Schwamborn, started to work on this problematic as a part of Javier’s PhD project which Jens was supervising. Javier is an expert in stem cell models, phenotyping screening, and computational data analysis. Jens is a professor at the University of Luxembourg, neuroscientist expert in stem cell research and Parkinson’s disease research.

OUR CHOICE CIRCULAR FASHION OUR CHOICE is Luxembourg’s first fashion-tech startup which provides sustainable fashion on digital demand worldwide. OUR CHOICE successfully launched the world’s first circular sneakers in November 2020.

Filip Westerlund, the founder of OUR CHOICE, is still doing his Master’s in psychology at the University of Luxembourg while running his own business. “I am super happy that Incubator allows me to pursue my entrepreneurial side alongside my studies,”- he says.

FILIP WESTERLUND

CEO

OUR STARTUPS

45

— “With the support of Incubator, I managed to accelerate the business in a way that I could never have done by myself.”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

For Filip it is very important that OUR CHOICE has a neutral carbon footprint. OUR CHOICE utilize sustainable and circular raw materials that are less resource intensive and that they can control. Designed for an optimized and an end-of-life in mind which makes OUR CHOICE’s products easy to maintain, repair, upgrade or recycle. OUR CHOICE take full social responsibility and only produce ethical fashion in compliance with the EU-labor law. As a fashiontech startup OUR CHOICE only produce what our customers really want, on digital demand.

PATLUX Parents as Trainers Luxembourg aka PATLUX believes that “learning by doing” is much more effective than “learning by reading “, “learning by listening” or “learning by watching”. PATLUX is an elite forum which gives an opportunity for parents to engage with the children during weekends. During PATLUX events parents and children work on various fields - it could be on cars, on logistics, on software, or anything else.

The central vision of PATLUX is to help and integrate parents and children to learn fundamentals of science and mathematics in an innovative way.

SAKTHIVEL M. MANIKANDAN

CEO

— “This is a calculated challenge, which could be addressed effectively with the help of existing education ecosystem in place in Luxembourg.”

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Sakthivel Manikandan, a founder of PATLUX, is a parent as well and knows for fact that learning by doing is the best way for children to learn. “PATLUX is a unique social and a non-profit organization which serves for foundation education learning methodologies.” – he says. “For any innovation in any field, science and mathematics remain indispensable needs. Parents are none other than the professionals who work in various fields where these two topics are applied to their day-to-day work.”

PICK AND COOK Pick and Cook provides vending machine with healthy and fresh ingredients to prepare meals at home.

This solution must address the issue of the young professionals working in Luxembourg and struggling to find time and energy to organize a healthy diet for themselves and their families with shops closing quite early or queues in the supermarket not allowing them enough time to cook after a long working day.

ALENA PODANEVA

CEO

OUR STARTUPS

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— “Everyone in the Incubator team is always very supportive and so very helpful, I feel like they are my second family!”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

The idea of this startup was the winner of the Ideation Camp 3 and this is where the team first met. Alena Podaneva, founder of Pick and Cook, says: “Ideation Camp is not just about creating a startup, it’s about making friends as well”.

Pick and Cook believes that being tired after work their customers don’t think about different options, they just grab the same products from the shelves and eat the same dishes over and over again. Pick and Cook provides a diversity of recipes and healthy fresh ingredients as well as an opportunity to spend less time shopping and more time cooking - which is proven to be good for mental health as well.

SIMPLEVIU Simpleviu places and manages recreational cabins in remote destinations around Luxembourg and combines it with diverse touristic services. The unique features of all the Simpleviu cabins are the glass walls which allow for panoramic views and a unique connection with nature. The cabins are also made out of local wood. The whole concept embodies a sustainable and circular economy approach.

Simpleviu believes that their cabins are a perfect solution for a romantic getaway as well as hiking trips, wellness and relaxation for the Luxembourgers who did not before consider their home country as a holiday destination.

PHILIPPE MORGADO

CEO

— “Having an office, mentoring and guidance means that I don’t have to do everything or most of the things on my own.”

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OUR STARTUPS

Philippe Morgado, the founder of Simpleviu, has a strong passion for travelling. Through the extensive market research during his Master’s in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Luxembourg, Philippe identified that even though Luxembourg has a beautiful nature, there is a low level of satisfaction with touristic accommodations within the country and a big need for innovation in the tourism sector. “There are so many beautiful destinations in Luxembourg but many locals and international tourists never actually made it there due to many reasons like lack innovation. If we look at some problems that the tourism industry is facing and add the problems that COVD-19 is causing, I strongly believe that innovating and daring new solutions is a must.” – says Phillipe.

VISIBILITY STEM AFRICA Visibility STEM Africa is a community of Africans working in STEM worldwide. Their mission is to help making African STEM more visible while also providing new opportunities for collaboration.

Nathasia Muwanigwa, a founder of Visibility STEM Africa, is a scientist who moved from Zimbabwe a while ago and always felt that there is a lack of representation of Africans and black people in the science field here, in Europe.

NATHASIA MUWANIGWA

CEO

OUR STARTUPS

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— “My participation in the Ideation Camp was really the catalyst for me getting the confidence to wanting to turn my idea into a startup.”

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

Through her activity on Twitter she met many fellow Africans in STEM as well as her partner, Natasa Lazarevic, and together they created VSA. They are now helping scientists, engineers and mathematicians from across African continent to give them visibility and inspire future generations.

“Not only do we highlight Africans in STEM fields, we also have an Opportunities page on our website, where we link people to organizations or funding bodies that can help them find scholarships, funding etc,” Nathasia said, “We want to be able to empower Africans pursing STEM fields with information that could be useful for them to move forward in their careers.”

ZESTYLAWYER Zestylawyer is a startup which helps landlords and tenants manage their relations all way through the life of the rental agreement. Zestylawyer facilitates relationship from both sides and helps people resolve their legal issues without having to recourse to a lawyer.

As a response to COVID crisis, Zestylawyer also developed a solution Viral Help which is a free tool where user just answers a few questions and the system gives them a letter that they can simply forward to their landlord that starts the procedure to re-negotiate their rent. This website also lists tips and advice, like managing subscription relations, etc.

DR ALEX BOGDANOV

CEO

— “Since I am a creator, I need someone to help me focus and the Incubator does just that. It also does a great job with mentoring sessions through its VMS programme.”

ZESTYLAWYER

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Dr Alex Bogdanov, founder of Zestylawyer, says: “At Zestylawyer we believe in easing access to the legal relations between different players, like landlord and tenant, shop and a buyer, or government and a citizen.

This belief is the reason why at the age of 45, I went back to University to get a degree in Law, despite having a PhD and an MBA.” It is through his Master’s at the University of Luxembourg that Alex got an opportunity to host his business at the Incubator.

COVID RESPONSE In 2020 HIVE team was faced with a challenge of global pandemic and had to adapt its activities to the new reality which we faced recently.

Here are some of the initiatives like Build your own internship that were developed to continue to deliver towards our mission objectives.

COVID RESPONSE

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Build Your Own Internship is 10 weeks online programme which brings students of the University of Luxembourg 10 ECTS towards their degree. Due to COVID 19 situation most summer internships were cancelled. Our very first remote entrepreneurship initiative brought together more than 30 Master and Bachelor students from three different faculties of the University of Luxembourg.

During this programme participants had the opportunity to acquire the necessary entrepreneurship skills and develop their own ventures. Students’ teams worked on education, community, financial, health tech and civil engineering ideas aimed at bringing sustainable positive change in our society.

PROF. TILL DEMBECK :

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

“Build Your Own Internship started out as an experiment during the Covid 19 crisis. It was about offering students an alternative to canceled internships but the results surpassed the original purpose by far, turning it into an enormously enriching experience for everyone involved. I saw rather shy and skeptical students turn into self confident entrepreneurs in only two months thanks to the hands on approach of the programme and to the devoted work of the Entrepreneurship Programme and Incubator team as well as the mentors.”

Other activities of the team had to also go online. For example, VMS mentoring sessions with startups as well as team’s bi-monthly meetings with mentors were done via Webex since the pandemia started.

The continuity of the educatonal and mentoring processes was thus ensured even in these uncertain and difficult times.

3

NUMBER OF BI MONTHLY MEETINGS THAT ALREADY TOOK PLACE IN ONLINE FORMAT

NUMBER OF MENTORING PRE SEED SESSIONS ONLINE

12

NUMBER OF MENTORING SEED SESSIONS ONLINE

3

ONLINE EXPERT SESSIONS WHEREBY A SPECIALIST IN A SPECIFIC TOPIC COMES TO SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCE

3

ADDITIONAL ONLINE OFFICE HOURS WHERE HELP IS PROVIDED BY THE VMS TEAM ITSELF

COVID RESPONSE

15

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BUILDING BRIDGES CREATING THE FUTURE GENERATION OF INNOVATION-DRIVEN ENTREPRENEURS IS OUR MANTRA. With a growing community of 200+ mentors and speakers supporting more than 1500 students, we initiated the creation of 60+ jobs and 55 startups across eleven sectors, we have met our targets successfully and exceeded many of our initial expectations.

So much of our success can be attributed to the support we received from the corporate and startup ecosystem of Luxembourg and we consider it a true privilege to be located in such a flourishing and forward-thinking country.

As it takes a village to raise a child, the same applies here, it takes a community to raise a startup. We recognize and highly appreciate the value of our professional community – donors, funders, speakers, mentors – supporting our students and researchers, and to gather around them in the spirit of entrepreneurship. We do not take this support and munificence for granted and in playing our part, we continue to also pass our learnings and inspire other up and coming startup ecosystems around the world.

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BUILDING BRIDGES

Our deepest gratitude to the Luxembourg National Funds Agency and Fondation Veuve Emile Metz-Tesch (FVEMT) for their financial support to create new opportunities for our community.

We take great pride in our partnership with: University of Joseph Ki-Zerbo in Burkina Faso where we hosted the first international Ideation Camp with the generous funding support from Fondation Veuve Emile-Metz Tesch Toutes a l’ecole association which allowed us to welcome four very bright and talented students from Cambodia for a week of our International Summer School and startup internships.

We see numerous opportunities to contribute to the advancement of the Luxembourg’s Startup Nation vision by forging meaningful partnerships. We welcome opportunities for our students and startups to bring their entrepreneurial and innovative spirit to specific corporate or government challenges. We invite you to, join our community, mingle with our students and hire them, they will be motivated intrapreneurs. Your in-kind or financial contribution will enable us to continue improving the quality of our offerings.

We hope the Entrepreneurship Programme and Incubator can continue to count on you going forward. Please take some pride and joy in being a part of a community that is fundamentally boosting education, employability, economic and social value in Luxembourg To all of you who have helped make these achievements possible, thank you.

HIVE MAGAZINE 2020

CONTACT US Get in touch with the Hive team and ask for a meeting to discuss your startup project or to be included in the distribution list not to miss any opportunities.

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