Inspired by the founding spirit: Young people from Anne-Frank-Realschule Ahaus develop their own ideas at Start-up Week

Start-up week of the joint project Gründergeist #Youngstarts Münsterland

First they visited start-ups and founders, then the young people got active and creative themselves: Around 15 pupils from Year 10 of the Anne-Frank-Realschule in Ahaus took part in the Start-up Week of the joint project Gründergeist #Youngstarts Münsterland this week. They not only got a taste of entrepreneurial air, but also developed their own start-up ideas with the help of online workshops.

"With our offer, we want to encourage young people to deal with the topic of start-ups and to think entrepreneurially and creatively themselves. And that works best when founders themselves talk about themselves and their life and thus bring the founding spirit closer to the young people," emphasised Katharina Stemmer, project manager for the joint project at Münsterland e.V. That's why they first went on a start-up walk to the regional start-up scene in Münster before the participants then learned how to develop and present an idea in online workshops.

The young people visited the start-up garage of Technologieförderung Münster, took a look behind the scenes at liba Getränke and gained insights into the founding history of Finne Brauerei. "Developing your own idea and casting it into a company is very formative for your own personality development. You learn new things in record time and are always faced with new challenges that you master together in the founding team," emphasises Frank Sibbing, co-founder of Finne Brauerei and also project manager of Gründergeist #Youngstarts Münsterland.

Inspired by these stories, the young people then developed their own start-up ideas in teams. These ranged from a mobile restaurant as a bus to a company with all-round craft services or a website for dog owners. In the process, the students also talked about potential target groups and target group analysis. After that, the next step was on the agenda - from the idea to the business. To set the stage for this, the young people learned how to convincingly present and film their business idea.

The students particularly enjoyed the start-up walk and were encouraged to come up with their own ideas. "I thought it was great to discover and get to know new things. I could imagine founding a start-up later on - but I don't have a precise idea yet," said 15-year-old Anna Kemper, for example. Moritz Ackermann and Elias Tendzo were also enthusiastic: "It was totally exciting and there was always something to do. The start-ups were interesting and it was great to meet young people who have ideas. We can definitely recommend it to others, maybe to develop our own ideas."

In the future, the project also wants to get young people even more excited about the topic of start-ups. There will be a learning platform with explanatory videos and other materials, as well as further offers for Start-up Weeks, for which young people can also register independently of their school. In addition, an ideas competition is planned for next year. This way, interested young people can first develop their own idea and then later compete against other start-up ideas with this elaborated vision.

The organiser of the Start-up Week was the joint project Gründergeist #Youngstarts Münsterland, which strengthens the start-up intensity in Münsterland and opens up new start-up potential and target groups with target group-specific offers. The project is funded by the European Union and the NRW Ministry of Economics as part of the ERDF call "Regio.NRW".
Münsterland e.V. implements the project pillar for the school sector as lead partner together with the following partners: Wirtschaftsförderung im Kreis Warendorf (gfw) and Technologieförderung Münster GmbH.

www.youngstarts-muensterland.com