From student to serial founder
What is the connection between USC Bayreuth, inContAlert, Platooning, and the University of Bayreuth? Series founder Jannik Lockl answers questions.
This is what the InContAlert sensor looks like.
InContAlert
Jannik Lockl is a graduate of the University of Bayreuth and a "serial founder". This is not surprising, as the GründerUni offers a wide range of opportunities for further education in the field of self-employment. With many seminars, workshops and personal support, the University of Bayreuth offers the best environment for young founders. In UBTaktuell Lockl gives us a brief outline of his business ideas at the GründerUni.
USC Bayreuth
Jannik Lockl already took part in the bachelor's seminar €5 Competition in his second semester (industrial engineering). There, he and fellow students founded an amateur athlete agency (LOHRA Sports Consulting) to place young athletes who move to Bayreuth as students with local clubs, and thus build a bridge to club life.
During his semester abroad, playing football at the Marseille University Sports Club, Lockl had the idea of bringing college sports to Germany, first and foremost to his student home in Bayreuth. Together with some co-founders and teammates, he subsequently founded the University Sports Club (USC) Bayreuth in order to combine college-style sports at the University with German association sports. The overarching goal was to integrate students into the region, and connect them with the citizens of the City and District of Bayreuth.
In 2021, USC Bayreuth welcomed its 200th member. The members are spread across several divisions. "One of my comrades-in-arms at the time was Sebastian Ifland, who became CFO at USC Bayreuth back in 2016, which I remembered when I founded PURE later, and was looking for a co-founder for the finance division," Lockl explains.
For more Information: http://usc-bayreuth.de/
We were then able to register the concept as a patent and present it to the CIO of BMW. However, since several parties have intellectual property rights to the concept, this invention is not necessarily suitable for a spin-off.
inContAlert
Based on his experience gained with USC, Lockl tried to specialise even further in the direction of entrepreneurship in his master's degree, and for this reason took part in the International Business Plan Competition. "The basic idea of the competition is that students from the participating universities are put together in teams and are then supposed to develop a start-up together from idea to business plan over the course of a week," says Lockl explaining the idea of the competition held in Hong Kong. "There are both methodological and technical presentations in the process."
One of the presentations had incontinence as its theme. It was pointed out that those affected in nursing homes often have to wait a long time for washing after a mishap because the nursing staff simply don't notice. Smart nappies or the like might have provided a remedy. "However, that sounded too late to me, I thought of those affected and thought to myself that I actually wouldn't want to let it come to such a loss of dignity," says Lockl. "That's why I used various solution-finding techniques I learned in university to look for technologies that could somehow alert patients or caregivers to an involuntary loss of fluids occurring." With this concept, Lockl and his team finally won the competition, which was accompanied by Prof. Dr. Stefan Seifert (main organiser), Prof. Dr. Jörg Schlüchtermann (healthcare mentor), and Prof. Dr. Volker Altstädt (initiator of the cooperation with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology).
Afterwards, the team, which was thrown together in Hong Kong, was faced with the question of whether to continue the project. The team downsized, but continued its work - at least in the short term. In March 2017, they entered a competition in Illinois. "After we got into the TOP20, I felt vindicated, but unfortunately we didn't receive any money," Lockl recalls. "After a few weeks, we decided to dissolve the team by mutual agreement, as everyone was still studying and such a transatlantic team was rather doomed to failure."
The Bayreuth team for the competition in Hong Kong: Prof. Dr. Schlüchtermann, Patricia Wehner, Prof. Dr. Altstädt, Lisa Speidel, Vera Kapapa, Philipp Marschall, Elisa Philipps, Dr. Sascha Schweitzer, Lars Jansen, Erik Minnich, Lukas Schröder, Jannik Lockl, Moritz Jurschitzka, Alexander Müller und Dominik Kießling.
So, in May 2017, Lockl started looking for a co-founder from Bayreuth who would bring along the electrical engineering know-how. "After a few conversations, Tristan Zürl and I were partners."
Over the course of the summer, the newly formed team took part in several competitions thanks to the support of GründerUni Bayreuth. At the end of 2018, the sensor system was able to see real changes in bladder level for the first time, and the inContAlert team thus had data-based proof that the concept was fundamentally possible. "With this success, we then started fundraising and applied to the Medical Valley Award at the end of 2018," Lockl relates. Through several stages and a lengthy application, the two finally received approval for prize money of € 250,000 on 17 May 2019 to pay for salaries, student employees, and costs for prototypes, etc., among other things.
During these two years, the team was able to advance the project well and win more competitions. Over time, the team grew to four full-time employees and eight part-time employees at its peak. From November 2020, the team worked full time on the EXIST research transfer application. After the final pitch in front of a jury consisting of renowned representatives from science, industry, and finance, they were given the go-ahead in May 2021: through the EXIST research transfer, Lockl and his team received € 712,000. (Further Information: https://www.uni-bayreuth.de/en/university/press/press-releases/2021/136-exist-funding-incontalert/index.html und https://www.uni-bayreuth.de/de/universitaet/presse/pressemitteilungen/2021/058-Preis-fuer-Startup-inContAlert/index.html and https://www.uni-bayreuth.de/en/university/press/press-releases/2021/058-Startup-inContAlert-wins-business-plan-competition/index.html)
As part of the EXIST V project at the University of Bayreuth, the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation is currently evaluating the reach of regional offerings for start-up support. A survey is currently being conducted for this purpose. This can be completed here: https://eship.survey.uni-bayreuth.de/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=327185&lang=deThe inContAlert team
inContAlert
Platooning
Jannik Lockl was involved in various projects while working on his doctorate in the Business & Information Systems research group under Prof. Röglinger. One of them was blockchain-based platooning. In platooning, several vehicles link up to exchange data during their journey, for example on braking and speed or on the weather. According to Lockl, the exchange of data increases safety because traffic jams can adapt more quickly and cars brake faster. "We were also able to win numerous hackathons and competitions with this concept," says Lockl. "We were then able to register the concept as a patent and present it to the CIO of BMW. However, since several parties have intellectual property rights to the concept, this invention is not necessarily suitable for a spin-off.
Jannik LocklResearch Associate
Information Systems & Value-Based Business Process Management
University of Bayreuth
Phone: +49 (0) 921 / 55-4709
Mail: jannik.lockl@fim-rc.de