Before a company ventures onto the market, it endeavors to adapt the product to the needs of the target group. The digital platform Crowd Innovation brings start-ups and the crowd together to utilize the creativity and knowledge of the broad masses (“swarm intelligence”). “The founders present themselves and their project in detail,” explains Bernhard Lorig, Crowdfunding Manager at the start-up office of TU Kaiserslautern and KL University of Applied Sciences. “Anyone who is interested has the opportunity to give the company direct feedback and thus support it.” This helps to further develop products for specific target groups.
After the two start-ups greenable and inventied from Kaiserslautern successfully used the Fraunhofer Crowd Innovation Platform to further develop their product, the start-up Soft Spot:Games is now also taking advantage of this opportunity. Soft Spot:Games is a spin-off from Kaiserslautern University of Applied Sciences and is developing the fairly financed, interactive VR game Kerfuffle. The aim of the game is to tame the Kerfuffle, or “chaos” in German, whether with VR glasses, a smartphone, in the same room or online. In the end, this goal can only be achieved together and everyone has the opportunity to help develop the game further.
Ideas for the further development of Kerfuffle can be submitted until November 1. The company particularly needs the crowd’s help in the following areas in order to become more efficient: Community, funding and equity. As a thank you, all idea providers will be invited to a joint online games evening.
The crowd innovation platform was developed by the Innovation Financing Group at Fraunhofer IMW. As part of a project with the Kaiserslautern start-up office, it is investigating how start-ups can make sensible use of this tool. “For example, we want to find out how start-ups need to set themselves up for such campaigns and how we as a start-up office can offer the CrowdInnovation tool to start-ups,” continues Lorig.
The joint project with Fraunhofer IMW has grown out of the start-up office’s IDEENWALD brand, which focuses on people and their motivation to realize ideas for the benefit of the region, people and the environment. It combines numerous projects and measures, such as the establishment of a network of start-up supporters (IDEENWALD ecosystem), a smartphone app with hikes to promote creativity (IDEENWALD creative trail), a crowdfunding platform for projects from Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland (IDEENWALD platform) or the largest conference in Germany on the topic of cooperative collaboration in the crowd (IDEENWALD-CrowdFORUM).
Contact
Bernhard Lorig
Foundation Coach / Crowdfunding Manager
Phone +49 631 205 2833
lorig@gruendungsbuero.info
Anne Becker-Mironici
Research Associate Innovation Finance Group
Project Management TransferFinanz
Phone +49 341 231039-161
anne.becker-mironici@imw.fraunhofer.de
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Further links
👉 www.imw.fraunhofer.de
Photo: pixabay
