Not one, not two, but three winners emerged from the national Get in the Ring finals in The Hague on Thursday November 17th. FreshStrips, Flex-Appeal and Mellon Medical were the winning startups that presented the pitches which packed the most punch. They will join ParkEagle (winner GITR Amsterdam) and VR Peekaboo (winner GITR Maastricht) as the Dutch entries in the Global Get in the Ring in Singapore in May 2017.
Light Weight, Middle Weight and Heavy Weight Winners
Student startup Fresh Strips from the Technical University of Eindhoven won in the Light Weight category with its clever strips that change colour when temperatures increase. The Fresh Strips provide a more accurate indication of expiration dates than the current system of dates printed on items. The Middle Weight category was for communication platform Flex-Appeal. Flex-founder Ruben Wieman even wore a bow-tie that matched the company’s logo. Mellon Medical from Nijmegen’s Novio Tech Campus took home the Heavy Weight Award due to the Medtech’s groundbreaking Switch appliance which can improve the way surgery is performed.
More than 300 startups competing for three spots
Throughout the day 10-minute “speeddates” between pitching founders and corporates took place. Out of 300 competing startups, 90 were selected to pitch in front of a jury consisting of DQ&A-founder Heleen Dura, Elastic-Founder Steven Schuurman and Metrixlab-founder Han de Groot. They selected six finalists, who then got to battle it out amongst each other for those three tickets to the Global Final.
Royalty in the Ring
The national Get in the Ring-final took place at the University of Applied Sciences in The Hague during the How To Get There Summit, which drew over 3000 participants. The Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship organised the summit as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week. The motto of the day was “innovating faster together”. It is not every day you see a royal enter the ring, but it happened at the start of this summit, as HRH Prince Constantijn van Oranje opened the event in the same ring where the finalists would pitch finals later that night. The Special Envoy of StartupDelta performed the opening together with Martin Luxemburg (Director of Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship) and Jan Lintse, member of the Board of the University of Applied Sciences.
Corporates Getting into the Ring
Three big Dutch corporates announced at the event that they will be challenging startups worldwide in cooperation with Get in the Ring. KPN, ASML, and APM Terminals will go looking for groundbreaking startups together with Get in the Ring. The most interesting startups will land prestigious pilot contracts with these corporates to implement and develop their solutions. So what is it that these major companies want? KPN is looking for AI solutions for business intelligence, ASML is in search of high tech manufacturing solutions, and APM Terminals is keeping an eye out for smart logistics solutions. Read all about it at getinthering.co/challenges
Photos provided by the Erasmus Center for Entrepreneurship
