Stöbich Entrepreneurship Promotion Prize 2021

The Stöbich Entrepreneurship Promotion Prize was awarded for the first time. This award, initiated by the Goslar-based fire protection company STÖBICH, recognises outstanding dissertations in the field of entrepreneurship research - in plain language: scientific work that investigates and develops methods for innovative entrepreneurship and thereby supports budding young entrepreneurs in setting up their own companies.

The 10-member jury of the Entrepreneurship Hub of Braunschweig University of Technology and Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences has decided: Dr Torben Antretter will receive the Stöbich Entrepreneurship Doctorate Award 2021, which is endowed with 7,500 euros. At the award ceremony on 8 December, Jörg Schiebel, Chairman of the Management Board of the STÖBICH Group, was joined in his congratulations by Björn Thümler, Lower Saxony's Minister for Science and Culture, TU President Prof. Dr Angela Ittel and Prof. Dr Reza Asghari, Head of the Entrepreneurship Hub based at both universities. Due to the Corona pandemic, the event took place as an online-only event.

But what exactly is the Swiss entrepreneurship researcher's almost 200-page dissertation about? The topic "AI-based analysis of the prospects of success of start-ups" is very complex. Essentially, it is about the possibility of predicting the survival chances of a newly founded company with the help of artificial intelligence. The machine learning algorithms of the developed software succeed in doing this by almost 90 % - an impressive rate. The practical app is fed with results from various prediction models and already actively helps business angels - i.e. private investors - in the selection of start-up scholarship holders.
Private investors play a crucial role for young entrepreneurs, as they can support start-ups financially and in terms of networking at a very early stage: the more promising a start-up is, the more likely it is to receive initial funding support and thus the more likely it is to succeed. Thus, in addition to the start-up incubators, the budding entrepreneurs also benefit from the innovative technologies.

Company founder and prize donor Dr.-Ing. Jochen Stöbich was himself an entrepreneur from the very beginning and promoted innovation and entrepreneurial courage until his death earlier this year. With the Stöbich Entrepreneurship Promotion Award, a part of his pioneering spirit now lives on and will surely inspire many more to promising projects.

More information on the award at https://www.entrepreneurship-hub.org/stoebich-promotionspreis/