What a night! On November 19th our founding competition GROW started for already the eight time. With over 60 teams presenting their ideas the kickoff reached another climax in the history of GROW. So be ready for an awesome Midterm and Final, exciting pitches can be guaranteed already.

But before that, we want to think back to every highlight from the kickoff. The GROW-team has put a lot of thought into the way they wanted to let the event take place. As the situation with the coronavirus did not become better, they had to do the jump and organize the first online GROW-competition. It took place – of course one might argue – on Zoom. But of course, Zoom has limited options, so they used another tool where you could find a map with every link needed, the program, a Q&A and a funny picture section.

Enough of the tools! Let us get into the program. It started with an introduction by the head of GROW, Elena Ostwald. Then the winner of last year’s competition, Marco Salas, who founded Pockethost (check it out!), gave some insights in “How to win GROW”. His advice was to not take yourself too seriously and to enjoy the evening, because beside the prices (up to 3000€), everybody is there to have a good time.

Then the pitches started. The field of ideas was extraordinary. From batteries, over health care and coffee to clothes and tracking software, you could hear whatever you wanted! If you want to hear the pitches (again), I recommend you check them out on Youtube, by the way. Since it took place online only, the participants were as diverse as the ideas. There were even participants from India, Colombia, and Mannheim.

My personal highlight, and I hear that it was not only my highlight, was the pizza competition. The GROW team managed to let a virtual pizza roll through the camera. Awesome, right? Also, best pitch won a real pizza.

So, all in all it was a very long but very exciting kickoff and my expectations to the Midterm and Final are high!

PS.: Here is the link to the kickoff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieU8s8KaIjs