Covestro selects winners of employee start-up challenge
28/02/2018
The company invited its staff to submit innovative ideas for consideration. Around 600 projects were submitted worldwide, with sustainability and new digital business models the focus of a number of ideas.
After narrowing the shortlist down to six teams at the end of 2017, a final took place, at which the teams presented their ideas to Covestro’s management board.
The winning team consisted of Marc Schreiber, Anna-Leona Breidbach, Axel Schmidt and Holger Mundstock, who are working on a new technology to allow coaters to work faster and more efficiently, especially in the automobile industry.
The four winners will now get 12-months leave from their jobs to develop the idea. They will also receive start-up funding of up to €1 million.
“We were overwhelmed by the great innovative power of the ideas and the distinctive entrepreneurial thinking of the applicants,” said Dr Markus Steilemann, Covestro board member in charge of innovation, marketing and sales. “With the Start-Up Challenge we reinforce our claim that innovation goes beyond traditional research and development. Because every single employee in every department can develop something new.”
Image shows the winning team receiving their award (credit: Covestro).
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