start2grow

Founders competition to encounter structural transformation

Overview

After the structural transformation from the 1950s until the 1990s around 70.000 jobs were lost in the city of Dortmund. To encounter this difficult incident next to other activities a founders competition was implemented to stimulate innovation and job creation through an entrepreneurship promoting approach. While the region was specialized on mining and heavy industries for a long time period, the new approach is focusing on high-tech sectors. Since the project was launched the interconnection of start-ups and funding institutions was strengthened and over 1000 companies and 5000 jobs could be created.

Background

Dortmund as the 6st biggest city in Germany lost around 70.000 jobs due to the collapse of coal mining, beer & steel production in the 80ies. As part of a strategy to respond to these circumstances, in 2001 the dortmund-project was implemented to create new jobs in the region – within this initiative the founders’ competition “start2grow” started as well. The Public Private Partnership was founded by the city of Dortmund with the partners Thyssen Krupp, Technology Center Dortmund and small and medium sized companies.

Objectives

Although most lost jobs were in mining and steel industry, the focus of the project is on new sectors like IT, logistics, Micro- and Nanotech. The dortmund-project involves a strong cluster approach and aims to support established companies to grow, build up and by developing the needed personal competences and to foster young start-ups. Dortmund-project was planned as a project format with a determined time period from 2000 till 2010.

Activities

The founders competition “start2grow“ as one activity of the dortmund-project was introduced in 2001 and held special prizes for high technology ideas. The prices are split into two parts: The first half is disbursed directly with the award ceremony and the second half is disbursed after the start-up was founded and only if it settles in Dortmund.

Effects

32 business plan competitions were held since the introduction of the project in 2001. 10.140 participants, 4.510 teams participated and 3.295 business plans were handed in which initiated the founding of 1.035 companies and created 5.511 jobs whereof 393 companies and 1.772 jobs are located in the city of Dortmund. More then 650 coaches participate voluntarily in the project and direct contact to banks & VC-partners could be established and the ISO 9001 certification could be achieved. “start2grow” became a marketing instrument for the region.

Conclusions

The “start2grow” project demonstrates that supporting entrepreneurship and innovation can be an effective strategy to create jobs and new perspectives especially for new generations amongst regions. Although the desired scalability is not always feasible many small businesses with few employees have positive impacts on the stability of regional economic development. Competition can serve as a stimulating incentive but grassroots movements and individual work shouldn’t be underestimated. The integration of start-up promotion into the cluster strategy presents promising perspectives and should be extended.

Sharing experiences with other entities working for the promotion of economic development on the issue of job creation, economic impact and sector related strategies is an appreciated approach that the city of Dortmund is most willing to enrich.

In 2010 the dortmund-project ended, but the founders competition will continue – this shows the value of the competition and the engagement of the city for innovative start-ups. Today “start2grow” is an initiative for the local economic development agency and continues to attract start-ups from all over Germany to come and settle in Dortmund.

Further Information

www.start2grow.de

Published: 20/05/2016

Contact

Sylvia Tiews
Local economic development Dortmund

sylvia.tiews(at)stadtdo.de

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Categories: Local economic development Start-up promotion Fostering innovation Location development Dortmund-project

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