MCBW START UP Design for Change

Start-ups and design­ers play a dis­tinct role in the advance­ment of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and inno­va­tion in our econ­o­my and soci­ety in gen­er­al. They devel­op trend-set­ting appli­ca­tions for new tech­nolo­gies or design and cre­ate prod­uct and ser­vice cycles, often in unprece­dent­ed ways. On the basis of this back­ground and fol­low­ing MCBW’s mot­to, Shap­ing futures by design, MCBW START UP 2021 addressed the pletho­ra of oppor­tu­ni­ties for young com­pa­nies to help shape the tran­si­tion and the future.

The vir­tu­al MCBW START UP exhi­bi­tion offered an inspir­ing overview of lead­ing-edge top­ics and devel­op­ments con­cern­ing Bavaria’s start-up scene. First and fore­most, the exhibits includ­ed eco­log­i­cal­ly and social­ly respon­si­ble prod­ucts and dig­i­tal and tech­no­log­i­cal appli­ca­tions for the archi­tec­ture, health­care, inte­ri­or design, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, mobil­i­ty, and fash­ion sec­tors. Vis­i­tors had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to embark on an inter­ac­tive dis­cov­ery tour of the prod­ucts and ser­vices pre­sent­ed in a vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tion space designed espe­cial­ly for MCBW START UP.

As part of a sym­po­sium, two themed pan­el dis­cus­sions explored the MCBW START UP top­ics. Par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed the role of design in trans­fer­ring key sus­tain­able and inno­v­a­tive devel­op­ments and tech­nolo­gies into prod­ucts and ser­vices for tomor­row. The first pan­el dealt with cir­cu­lar design and inves­ti­gat­ed ways for com­pa­ny founders to design and man­u­fac­ture prod­ucts and ser­vices using new mate­ri­als and in line with eco­log­i­cal cycles. Focus of the sec­ond pan­el was on tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and vir­tu­al real­i­ty. The pan­el dis­cus­sion was streamed live from MCBW Forum at Hochschule für Fernse­hen und Film (HFF) in Munich.

Through­out MCBW, coop­er­a­tion part­ners con­duct­ed work­shops and sprint and coach­ing ses­sions to offer start-ups ded­i­cat­ed assis­tance and in this way con­tribute to their suc­cess. Design meth­ods and cre­ative tech­niques facil­i­tat­ed a cross-dis­ci­pline trans­fer of knowl­edge for start-ups and future founders in the design industry.

Ini­ti­at­ed by bay­ern design, for the sev­enth con­sec­u­tive year the plat­form sup­port­ed tar­get­ed exchanges among design-ori­ent­ed start-ups, design­ers, busi­ness experts, and a wide audi­ence dur­ing MCBW 2021.

In addi­tion to eco­log­i­cal­ly and social­ly respon­si­ble prod­ucts, this year’s vir­tu­al MCBW START UP exhi­bi­tion, which was open to the pub­lic, focused on dig­i­tal and tech­no­log­i­cal appli­ca­tions for the archi­tec­ture, health­care, inte­ri­or design, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, mobil­i­ty, and fash­ion sec­tors. Vis­i­tors had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to embark on an inter­ac­tive dis­cov­ery tour of the prod­ucts and ser­vices pre­sent­ed in a vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tion space designed espe­cial­ly for MCBW START UP.

Did you miss the exhi­bi­tion? Click here to vis­it it.

The vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tion show­cased up-and-com­ing com­pa­nies that stand out because of their design and inno­v­a­tive entre­pre­neur­ial approach­es. Their prod­ucts and ser­vices exem­pli­fy how founders suc­cess­ful­ly employ design as a method, an envi­ron­ment for devel­op­ment, and a tool for cre­ation at all stages of devel­op­ment. The spec­trum includes archi­tec­ture, inte­ri­or design, health­care and care, fash­ion, e‑mobility, and arti­fi­cial intelligence.

Eco­fario, a green-tech start-up based in Munich, has devel­oped a fil­tra­tion sys­tem that elim­i­nates even minute par­ti­cles of microplas­tics from water with­out the need for phys­i­cal fil­ters. The High-G-Sep­a­ra­tor has only nine com­po­nents thus mak­ing instal­la­tion easy and main­te­nance user-friendly.

The cross-dis­ci­pli­nary team from the start-up Puray is made up of stu­dents and grad­u­ates of Munich Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty and is active in the field of health­care. Puray’s hand dis­in­fect­ing device uses UVC light waves to elim­i­nate all known pathogens detect­ed on the skin with­out dam­ag­ing any human cells. The use of the device is intu­itive and contact-free.

Intu­itive usabil­i­ty is a cen­tral goal at Qwello as well. This start-up devel­ops charg­ing sta­tions for elec­tric vehi­cles based on the oper­a­tion of con­ven­tion­al fuel pumps. These charg­ing sta­tions require a min­i­mum amount of space – par­tic­u­lar­ly desir­able in urban set­tings. Qwello’s mobile app can be used to check avail­abil­i­ty and to make reservations.

Hyper­gan­ic, a soft­ware plat­form for trail­blaz­ing design and engi­neer­ing, uses arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to design objects that can be print­ed on indus­tri­al 3D print­ers and used in inno­v­a­tive appli­ca­tions such as rock­et engines.

In con­trast, the team at the start-up nojin of Nurem­berg focus­es on gen­uine hand man­u­fac­tur­ing: Its eco­log­i­cal, gen­der-neu­tral col­lec­tion of durable slow-fash­ion prod­ucts com­bines time­less and ver­sa­tile design with crafts­man­ship. To keep the waste of mate­ri­als to a min­i­mum, nojin pro­duces in small batch­es and based on demand.

Oth­er com­pa­nies show­cased in the exhi­bi­tion includ­ed Ambilet­ics with its sus­tain­able yoga fash­ion; CAALA, a dig­i­tal assis­tant used for design­ing sus­tain­ably; freisicht eye­wear, a com­pa­ny that makes eye­glass­es from sol­id wood; kom­mod Klein­mö­bel; MARI&ANNE nat­ur­al cos­met­ics; OUT­EN­TIC, a mak­er of mod­u­lar back­pack sys­tems; Sause, which makes sus­tain­able foam­ing soap; sen­sor man­u­fac­tur­er tac­te­ri­on; Tjiko mod­u­lar con­struc­tion; and urbandoo’s loop scarves that fea­ture air filters.

The prod­ucts and ser­vices pre­sent­ed in the ded­i­cat­ed vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tion space could be explored inter­ac­tive­ly. The vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tion was set up exclu­sive­ly for MCBW in coop­er­a­tion with Schroed­er Rauch and Stu­dio Jester Blank.

Videos of inter­views about the exhi­bi­tion also can be viewed indi­vid­u­al­ly in our MCBW START UP 2021 YouTube playlist.

Through­out MCBW, coop­er­a­tion part­ners con­duct­ed brief work­shops and sprint and coach­ing ses­sions to offer start-ups ded­i­cat­ed assis­tance and in this way con­tribute to their success.

The design meth­ods and cre­ative tech­niques con­veyed as part of the work­shops facil­i­tat­ed a cross-dis­ci­pline trans­fer of knowl­edge for start-ups and future founders.

Archi­tect and econ­o­mist Chris­tos Chantzaras and design­er Tobias Förtsch of Munich Tech­ni­cal University’s Depart­ment of Archi­tec­ture pre­sent­ed design meth­ods and tools for researchers inter­est­ed in found­ing new enter­pris­es. With these spe­cial­ized imple­ments researchers can use their find­ings to devel­op vision­ary con­cepts for the envi­ron­ment build­ing around us. The chal­lenges and the poten­tial of cur­rent use cas­es in urban set­tings were dis­cussed as were issues con­cern­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Oth­er top­ics cov­ered includ­ed vision and mis­sion, val­ue pro­pos­als, use con­text analy­ses, impact, cor­po­rate iden­ti­ty, and oth­er found­ing-relat­ed matters.

Munich University’s Strascheg Cen­ter for Entre­pre­neur­ship (SCE) invit­ed Car­olin Kunert, founder of Knis­ter Grill, and Julian Krauss, design strate­gist at FLU­ID DESIGN GmbH, to its Inno­va­tion Café to illus­trate why explor­ing the issue of design is a must for entre­pre­neurs. Among oth­er top­ics, their brief speech­es focused on how design can help start-ups suc­ceed, how to devel­op solu­tions to mankind’s gen­uine prob­lems, and how to deter­mine which prod­ucts and ser­vices will remain rel­e­vant going forward.

As part of this work­shop three cur­rent start-ups at the Wave­lab Start-up Incu­ba­tor of Hochschule für Musik und The­ater in Munich pitched their busi­ness ideas.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the three start-ups active in the music video con­fer­enc­ing (Sir­ius), vir­tu­al real­i­ty expe­ri­ences for muse­ums (Time­LeapVR), and plat­forms for dig­i­tal art (Sure­al) fields shared their expe­ri­ences design­ing ser­vices, prod­ucts, and process­es as they devel­oped their ideas and estab­lished busi­ness­es. The pitch­es were fol­lowed with a dis­cus­sion about the role of design in the process of idea devel­op­ment that involved all work­shop par­tic­i­pants and was mod­er­at­ed by Wavelab’s Jule Schröder.

Leonie Moos, Head of Pro­gram at Grace — Accel­er­ate Female Entre­pre­neur­ship of Berlin, and Susanne Scheer­er, Senior Strat­e­gy, Design, Con­cept and Con­tent Lead at ignore grav­i­ty inno­va­tion and strat­e­gy con­sul­tan­cy, intro­duced work­shop par­tic­i­pants to rapid pro­to­typ­ing and explained how to design ini­tial test sce­nar­ios. The work­shop addressed founders and start-ups intent on find­ing ways to trans­fer ideas to ini­tial pro­to­types that can be test­ed by poten­tial users or cus­tomers. Par­tic­i­pants famil­iar­ized them­selves with pro­to­typ­ing ideas in an afford­able yet effec­tive man­ner and cre­at­ing expe­ri­ences that can be test­ed with cus­tomers and facil­i­tate invalu­able and impact­ful learn­ing with­out hav­ing to resort to big tech.