First Innovation Sprint Successfully Completed: 10 Teams Presented Innovative Solutions for Real-World Challenges

The first pilot edition of the Innovation Sprint, jointly organized with the boOst Startup Factory Mitteldeutschland, successfully concluded with a final pitch event on May 22, at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Over the course of the intensive five-day format, nearly 50 students from a wide range of disciplines collaborated in interdisciplinary teams to develop innovative solutions for real-world challenges provided by practice partners.

The Innovation Sprint brought together students from different academic backgrounds, ensuring that every team worked interdisciplinarily and combined diverse perspectives, expertise, and approaches throughout the innovation process. Using methods from entrepreneurship and design thinking, participants moved from problem exploration and user research to ideation, prototyping, and final pitching within a highly intensive and practice-oriented learning environment. An important aspect of the Innovation Sprint was the strong focus on rapid prototyping and tangible innovation. In this context, we are especially grateful for the support of the Lichtwerkstatt Jena, which offered workshops on 3D printing and laser cutting during the Innovation Sprint. These workshops enabled students to transform their concepts into physical prototypes and gain hands-on experience with practical fabrication and prototyping technologies.

One particularly impactful real-world challenge was provided by Katja Jarmer from the Initiative Innenstadt Jena. The challenge focused on identifying innovative ways to reactivate local consumption in Jena’s city center and to strengthen and protect local retail businesses in the face of changing consumer behavior and increasing competitive pressure. Students were asked to develop ideas that could help make the city center more attractive, participatory, and responsive to citizens’ needs. A major highlight of the final event was the presentation of 10 final pitches, demonstrating not only entrepreneurial creativity, but also the strong societal and practical relevance of the developed ideas.

We would especially like to congratulate the three winning teams:

• “Jena und Ich”, developed within the Innenstadt Jena Initiative Challenge, introduced a participatory digital platform designed to strengthen communication between citizens and local decision-makers. Through QR-code-based interaction points distributed throughout the city, residents can easily share ideas, wishes, and concerns related to urban life. The concept transforms scattered feedback into structured insights that can support more responsive and data-informed urban development. Particularly exciting is the fact that the idea is now expected to move towards real-world implementation and may contribute to strengthening local engagement and economic activity in Jena’s city center.
• “SafePaws” developed a smart-collar concept aimed at improving communication between dogs, owners, and the public. By combining sensors, LED signals, and customizable warning messages, the solution helps make dogs’ boundaries visible before stressful situations escalate. The project addressed a highly practical everyday challenge while combining technology, safety, and empathy in an innovative way.
• “Nibble” presented an AI-supported application for personalized meal planning and smart grocery management. Based on users’ individual preferences and needs, the app creates recipes, optimizes meal planning, and identifies affordable nearby grocery options. The concept combined artificial intelligence, personalization, and sustainability with practical everyday usability.

The final pitches were evaluated by a jury consisting of Felix Hagleitner (boOst Startup Factory Mitteldeutschland), Katja Jarmer (Initiative Innenstadt Jena), Susanne Herold (Forschungs- und Technologieverbund Thüringen e.V. / getstarted2gether) as well as Prof. Dr. Matthias Menter and Emilie Holley (Friedrich Schiller University Jena).

Throughout the week, the student teams were additionally supported through intensive coaching sessions provided by experts, practitioners, and startup-related stakeholders from the boOst Startup Factory Mitteldeutschland ecosystem. This close interaction created a highly dynamic and collaborative learning atmosphere that strongly reflected the transfer-oriented spirit of the format.

As the very first pilot run of the Innovation Sprint, the week marked an exciting milestone for interdisciplinary, transfer-oriented, and practice-based teaching at our chair. Beyond the impressive ideas developed during the sprint, the format demonstrated the enormous potential that emerges when students from different disciplines collaborate intensively on real-world challenges within a structured innovation process.

We would like to sincerely thank all participating students, coaches, practice partners, and supporters — especially our collaborators from boOst Startup Factory Mitteldeutschland — who contributed to making this first edition such a successful and inspiring experience.