CONGRATULATIONS!!!! The Ingolstadt Founder's Prize honored innovative ideas for the 13th time. The startup Feldschau won in the “light” category and thus a trophy and prize money of 1,500 euros.

Teams were able to present their business ideas at the Region 10 Founder's Prize in mid-June. The startup Feldschau, which was founded as part of a project by Professor Dr. Thorsten Schön from the Ingolstadt University of Technology (THI) and Prof. Dr. Patrick Noack from Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University (HSWT) prevailed against nine other applications in his category.

Field show: Agriculture meets AI       

Feldschau combines the two disciplines of artificial intelligence (AI) and agriculture by automatically counting wheat ears on drone images taken from a bird's eye view. The project team is made up of professors, doctoral students and students from THI and HSWT. Lukas Sonner, who studied agriculture at the HSWT, was also involved in the startup.

Emanuel Jacobowsky studied the bachelor's degree in artificial intelligence at the THI and wrote his bachelor's thesis in this context, which was supervised by Prof. Dr. Nice and Prof. Dr. Noack was looked after. In his thesis, he examined the detection and counting of wheat ears on drone images using AI. His analysis of 77 plots found that AI can optimize the way humans manually count wheat ears. Jacobowsky is satisfied: “Agriculture is facing major challenges and we are ushering in the new future of agriculture.”

Awarded the Founder’s Prize

The startup’s work was honored with the “light” category award. A total of seven prizes were awarded in seven categories, for which there were 30 applications. The Ingolstadt Founder's Prize promotes innovative business ideas and supports entrepreneurs in realizing their plans. Free advice, contacts with experts and awards for outstanding concepts are part of the offer. Six partner organizations support the implementation of business ideas: Ingolstadt Business Start-up Center, IFG Ingolstadt, IRMA, Sparkasse Ingolstadt Eichstätt and the THI.

An application for the next Founder's Prize is possible until March 31, 2025.