Accelerating innovation

The Adlershofer Accelerator A2 inspect new energie ideas

Longstanding major corporations and start-ups generally speak different languages. The company culture is just as varied as the speed at which the two move both internally and in the marketplace. However, the ideas of the younger generation are just as important for the elders as customers and market expertise is for the success of the new business founder. So why not merge the two? That’s precisely the idea behind the Adlershofer Accelerator A2, whose first programme is dedicated to the topic of energy.

Their names are Cloud & Heat, Vestaxx, Complevo, Sunride and Pixolus. Their ideas stretch from servers whose heat emission is channelled to heat buildings and water, to windows which serve as attractive, app-controlled panel heaters, to a software which sells solar power to end customers on-site, to mobile image recognition technology which more quickly and easily records data.

Products and services from outside the industry, such as Berlin-based Complevo, which simulates the assembly and production processes of production workflows and optimises their ordering in real time, can also be extremely interesting for the energy sector.

“That’s just what this is about”, explains Oliver von Quast, Project Lead at Adlershofer Accelerator A2, in reference to the main difference between this project and other innovation accelerators. “It isn’t our goal to ready young companies for investors. We want to use our accelerator to evaluate the suitability of creative energy ideas for large companies in this sector”. There’s one more novelty: Until now, there has never been an accelerator with such a clear industrial focus.

Energy at Adlershof – as a technology park which itself “grew up” with the first generation of Eastern German founders and which boasts a wealth of experience in supporting innovative ideas – is the newest field of competence at the site. Adlershof developed its own Energy Strategy 2020, appointed an energy manager and began work on a series of efficiency measures such as a new type of lighting concept. Last but not least, Adlershof features numerous technological points of contact, for example, in the area of renewable energies and solar energy. The “newcomers” have piqued the interest of the energy sector. The utilities companies GASAG, BTB and Stromnetz Berlin have joined the bne (Association of Energy Market Innovators) as partners of the programme.

So far, 24 teams have applied to the accelerator programme. After the knock-out round, 12 of them presented their ideas to the industry partners. Each five-minute pilot project presentation was followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. At the end, eight of the companies were given intensive advisory support by the industry partners and they will present their results at a “Demoday” in July.

By Rico Bigelmann for Adlershof Special