MCBW START UP 2020: Inno­va­tion und Design

What will inno­va­tion and design look like in 2020? What top­ics are trend­ing? How do start-ups con­nect new tech­nolo­gies with design? bay­ern design’s MCBW START UP exhi­bi­tion at Munich Air­port (Feb­ru­ary 6 through June 30, 2020) offered insights into these top­ics. Select­ed design start-ups show­cased their design projects which cov­ered every­thing from sus­tain­abil­i­ty to inno­v­a­tive appli­ca­tions. A plat­form for founders of com­pa­nies and for design­ers, MCBW START UP was spon­sored by the Bavar­i­an State Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs. The exhi­bi­tion was com­ple­ment­ed by a sym­po­sium held on March 10 and by the TOOLS FOR FOUNDERS work­shop series con­duct­ed through­out the dura­tion of MCBW. At these work­shops, founders became acquaint­ed with the tools need­ed to estab­lish their enter­pris­es suc­cess­ful­ly. The exhi­bi­tion and the sym­po­sium were host­ed in coop­er­a­tion with Munich Airport.

What will inno­va­tion and design look like in 2020? What top­ics are trend­ing? How do start-ups con­nect new tech­nolo­gies with design? bay­ern design’s MCBW START UP exhi­bi­tion at Munich Air­port (Feb­ru­ary 6 through June 30, 2020) offered insights into these topics.

The 13 projects pre­sent­ed at the exhi­bi­tion at Munich Air­port stood out because of the inno­v­a­tive approach­es tak­en by the young com­pa­nies show­cas­ing them.

In coop­er­a­tion with AUDI AG, Aero­foils GmbH of Garch­ing promis­es surf­ing fun with­out wind or waves. The start-up opened a new dimen­sion in aquat­ic sports when it devel­oped a surf­board that has an elec­tric dri­ve: Users can glide over water vir­tu­al­ly sound­less­ly on a hydro­foil surf­board at speeds of up to 45 km/h.

nno­v­a­tive dri­ving fun is the objec­tive of the elec­tric, self-bal­anc­ing mini vehi­cle UrmO cre­at­ed by the Munich-based start-up of the same name. Steered with­out a han­dle­bar, the two-wheeled board has been designed to com­ple­ment exist­ing pub­lic transportation.

Anoth­er excit­ing inno­va­tion is the mouse con­trol appli­ca­tion devised by the start-up 4tiitoo of Munich. Called NUIA, this eye-track­ing soft­ware allows users to con­trol the move­ments of their cur­sors on their screens with their eyes. Com­bined with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, NUIA accel­er­ates dig­i­tal work and reduces unnec­es­sary mouse movements.

cos­i­nuss° of Munich has designed cos­i­nuss° One, a high-per­for­mance fit­ness track­er for pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes. This track­er mon­i­tors a series of vital para­me­ters with a high lev­el of accu­ra­cy. Via LED light and a tem­per­a­ture sen­sor attached to the user’s ear, cos­i­nuss° One mea­sures heart rate, heart rate vari­abil­i­ty, and body temperature.

Annu, a start-up formed by inter­na­tion­al design­ers and Nurem­berg-based crafts­peo­ple, uses cut­ting edge tech­nol­o­gy to design time­less, sus­tain­able eye-glass­es. All frames are 3D print­ed in line with the lat­est stan­dards of addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing and can be adjust­ed to fit the shape of the user’s face. The tem­ples, made of tita­ni­um, are clamped to the frame with no screws required. Even though the fin­ished eye-glass­es weigh less than a sheet of paper, they are flex­i­ble and robust.

Two of the start-ups par­tic­i­pat­ing in the exhi­bi­tion oper­ate in the field of inte­ri­or design. The first, HEAVN of Munich, designs and dis­trib­utes lamps for office envi­ron­ments. They intel­li­gent­ly align the inten­si­ty, col­or tem­per­a­ture, and direc­tion of the light emit­ted with the time of day or the respec­tive appli­ca­tion. The lamps’ 10.000 lux light can be reg­u­lat­ed, ranges from red­dish to blueish tones, and has acti­vat­ing and calm­ing effects.

The oth­er start-up, Sand­helden of Ger­sthofen, has man­aged to print bath­room fix­tures, for exam­ple, sinks and bath­tubs, using sand. In an addi­tive process, sand and glue are pressed into shape lay­er by lay­er using high-pre­ci­sion noz­zles. All prod­ucts can be cus­tomized to meet the user’s requirements.
Inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts and func­tions also have been devel­oped for use out­doors. Höfats, a young design firm of Kempten, has rein­vent­ed open fires with its devel­op­ment of a mul­ti-func­tion­al camp­fire site named CUBE. When turned, in a mat­ter of sec­onds the pow­der-coat­ed stain­less steel stool trans­forms into a fire pit for cozy bar­be­cue events. This unique com­bi­na­tion def­i­nite­ly is innovative!

Good design dri­ves sus­tain­abil­i­ty as could be seen in the exhibits con­tributed to the MCBW START UP Inno­va­tion and Design exhi­bi­tion by oth­er start-ups.
The mobil­i­ty indus­try was rep­re­sent­ed by two young com­pa­nies focus­ing on dri­ving sus­tain­able prod­ucts. Sono Motors is in the process of devel­op­ing a bat­tery-oper­at­ed elec­tric vehi­cle named Sion which can be charged with elec­tric­i­ty from the grid as well as through solar cells inte­grat­ed into its body. The entire con­cept behind Sion is built on sus­tain­abil­i­ty – from the pro­cure­ment of raw mate­ri­als to the pro­duc­tion of the vehi­cle using 100% green elec­tric­i­ty. In addi­tion, the vehi­cle oper­ates on a renew­able ener­gy source.
Joint­ly with diverse project part­ners, the start-up Adap­tive City Mobil­i­ty (ACM) has devised a mobil­i­ty con­cept for inner-city traf­fic. The con­cept com­pris­es a bat­tery-oper­at­ed elec­tric vehi­cle, a net­work of sta­tions for exchang­ing bat­tery mod­ules, and a dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture for rent­ing the cars.

The Munich-based start-up WYE pro­duces Neolign, a sus­tain­able mate­r­i­al, 85% of which is made of recy­cled wood fibers, and uses the mate­r­i­al to cre­ate func­tion­al tables and seat­ing con­cepts. Orig­i­nat­ing as waste prod­ucts of the wood indus­try, the fibers are com­bined with col­ored pastes and poly­mers into Neolign. The inno­v­a­tive mate­r­i­al fol­lows the cra­dle-to-cra­dle prin­ci­ple and can be re-shaped into new pieces of fur­ni­ture again and again.
The remod­el­ing indus­try has pro­duced a num­ber of inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able solu­tions as well: flis­sade, a mov­able floor-length win­dow front for homes, was devel­oped by two archi­tects from Munich. Moved via rails on the ceil­ing and the floor, flis­sade makes it pos­si­ble to inte­grate a bal­cony into the liv­ing area. Thanks to triple glaz­ing, the prod­uct offers opti­mal heat and sound insu­la­tion and seals against the elements.

Pfef­fer & Frost, a Nurem­berg-based start-up in the pack­ag­ing indus­try, offers a new, plas­tic-free con­cept for pack­ing tra­di­tion­al Nurem­berg gin­ger­bread. The gin­ger­bread is enveloped in a biodegrad­able plas­tic wrap and then packed into a new­ly designed sta­ble card­board box. The col­or­ful, expres­sive design on the box dif­fers sub­stan­tial­ly from the typ­i­cal design of con­ven­tion­al gin­ger­bread packaging.

The MCBW START UP exhi­bi­tion at Munich Airport’s Ter­mi­nal 2, Lev­el 04, Check-in Area South, ran from Feb­ru­ary 6 to June 30, 2020.
MCBW START UP, a founders’ plat­form for com­pa­nies and design­ers, was spon­sored by the Bavar­i­an State Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs. It was com­ple­ment­ed by a sym­po­sium held on March 10, 2020 and the TOOLS FOR FOUNDERS work­shop series which took place dur­ing MCBW 2020 and pro­vid­ed founders with tools for the suc­cess­ful estab­lish­ment of their busi­ness­es. The exhi­bi­tion and the sym­po­sium were host­ed in coop­er­a­tion with Munich Airport.

• 4tiitoo
• Adap­tive City Mobility
• Aero­foils GmbH
• Annu
• cos­i­nuss°
• flis­sade
• HEAVN
• Höfats
• Pfef­fer & Frost
• Sand­helden
• Sono Motors
• UrmO
• WYE