Most of us are aware of the many ways we need to decrease our impact on the planet — fly less often, spend less time in the car, stop using plastic and watch our electricity consumption.

But what about what we are eating? How do our stomachs affect climate change?

Eat less meat

Approximately 13.3 kilos of CO2 are released per kilo of beef. In order to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality in Germany, there is a 1-ton target. This goal means that only one ton of CO2 per person per year may be emitted. On one day this makes about 2.8 kilo CO2.

Back to beef — it is obviously essential to rethink our meat consumption. …

Growth Alliance — The AgTech and FoodTech Accelerator: Startup BEEsharing won 5000 € from Rentenbank.

Growth Alliance — The AgTech and FoodTech Accelerator

For the second year in a row, 10 startups in the AgTech (and introduced this year, FoodTech) development sectors participated in Growth Alliance: The AgTech and FoodTech Accelerator, a business bootcamp co-created by Rentenbank and TechQuartier. The program took place at TechQuartier in Frankfurt from 7–11 October.

More than 35 startups originally applied to be part of this accelerator. From that initial group, only 10 were invited to a week of intensive startup development.

1. Fliegende Wildretter: Before a farmer mows a field, drones are used to scout for baby and small animals to prevent needless deaths. …

On August 26, 2019 Hessen’s leading startup and business advocates gathered at TechQuartier to learn about the current state of the area’s ecosystem and future needs for growth. Among the participants were representatives of Hesse Trade and Invest, the Ministry of Economy, Goethe University, Science Park Kassel and Werte-Stiftung.

From the Startup Genome side, JF Gauthier (in attendance along with his co-founder Marc Penzel and Adam Bregu) presented his company’s research and findings in “Accelerating the Frankfurt Startup Ecosystem into an Engine of Economic Growth.”

The overarching message focused on the need for all the regional factions to work together to grow the current ecosystem. The recommendation is to become ambidextrous — using both “hands” (the first hand is traditional innovation clusters driven by corporations with universities represent, while the second is the startups ecosystems). The two hands need to work together to increase the number of entrepreneurs, and what Genome calls the ‘lab-to-startup performance.’ …

Throughout history, popular culture has routinely demonised artificial intelligence. In recent years public concerns have continued to grow, with academics by the likes of Yuval Noah Harari labelling technological disruption ‘one of humanity’s biggest challenges for the 21st century’. But companies like Givetastic want to change that: with a focus on promoting philanthropy and bringing about social change, the venture aims to increase donations to charitable causes with the help of AI. We sat down with Co-Founder Vidya Munde-Mueller to find out more about this atypical startup.

So Vidya, tell us a bit about Givetastic’s mission.

Our team is focused on making the giving experience easy and attractive using AI, allowing people to contribute to causes they care about any time, anywhere. In short, we are a matchmaking platform for social impact. We are in the process of building a collaborative platform that connects NGO’s with the public, matching people with charities that speak to their values based on the content they consume. …

On May 27th, TechQuartier held the first ‘Investor Day’ of the year. Bringing together both German and international investors from VCs, Family Offices, accelerators and development banks along with fast-growing startups and scaleups, the event saw over 100 attendees gather together for a day filled with pitches, speeches and Q&A sessions.

For our third edition, we decided to concentrate on connecting the Rhein-Neckar-Triangle, focusing on forging stronger ties with key players from Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate. Considering current polarisation across Europe and TQ’s function as an international hub and community builder, the event could not have been more timely.

Cloud computing seems to be on everybody’s lips, as was the case at Tuesday’s bustling TechQuartier: The ‘Cloud Meets Banking’ event, in collaboration with Main Incubator, saw over 140 attendees gather together for a day packed full of speeches and panels, featuring the Hessian Minister of Digital Strategy and Development Prof. Dr. Kristina Sinemus as well as experts from Google, IBM, Microsoft, ING, Deutsche Bank, Palo Alto Networks, Commerzbank, SAP, QWICS Enterprise Systems, PwC, ATOS, iNNOVO Cloud, smacc, meshcloud and Myra Security.

Given that the majority of today’s companies are embracing the cloud, the 16 speakers in attendance identified and assessed current trends as well as potential causes for concern, with discussions focusing on cloud security, regulation and implementation. …

‘Be yourself’ — a phrase so overused, it has become meaningless. When examining the success factors of startups, this simple saying, however, certainly seems to pack a punch. With ‘authenticity’ becoming somewhat of a buzzword in recent years, many consider it to be fundamental to shedding the ‘startup’ label and scaling. Indeed, considering the rise of artificial intelligence, authenticity is arguably one of the few characteristics that sets us apart from computers. But is being ‘yourself’ really that straightforward? …

The New Year certainly marked the beginning of a new chapter for TechQuartier. Over the past three months, we have been redefining our identity and aligning our incentives through the implementation of a new managerial system: Objective and Key Results. We sat down with TQ Co-Director Thomas Funke to discuss the ‘how’, ‘what’ and ‘why’s.

Thomas, when did you and Sebastian first discuss the topic of OKRs? As an Entrepreneurship teacher, I’m assuming you’ve known about them since their conception.

The first time I heard of OKRs was when Friedhelm Schmitt from Fincite gave a university talk back in the summer of 2017. They were one of the first to apply OKRs and reported extraordinary growth following their implementation. Friedhelm really sold the idea, describing them as a one-stop solution for growth problems. He even credited the implementation of OKRs as one of the major contributions to his success. …