Entrepreneurship-Award

Culture of Innovation

Every year, Evonik looks for an entrepreneur among its employees. The aim is for employees to hone their visionary thinking and develop their ideas for new projects. But what is an entrepreneur?

In this case, Evonik entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs in the company who advance their own idea and develop it into a business. Entrepreneurs are exceptionally creative and enthusiastic people. They are fired up about their idea and have the ability to motivate a team comprised of different people.

The Entrepreneurship Award is part of the Global Ideation Jam that Evonik always launches at the beginning of each year to find extraordinary ideas with potential for innovation. A panel of experts selects the six most promising ideas. The teams behind them, mostly young scientists, are then given time to prepare their projects for the finals. Afterwards, the panel selects the best project proposal and an entrepreneur who is allowed to develop the idea further.

The grand finale will show who has developed a functioning business idea from their idea. From the online ideation to the offline collaboration of the teams to the finals, the process is interactive and spans different departments. Participants can share their knowledge, provide food for thought, and make contacts.

It’s a great opportunity. Twelve months of hypotheses, experiments, and decisions. What is important now is to implement processes quickly, leanly, and effectively so as to bring our idea to fruition as efficiently as possible. Fortunately, the level of support from all units is very high.

Dr. Matthias Lamping, winner of the 2018 Entrepreneurship Award

I know that the year ahead will be very demanding and a lot will change for me. But that doesn’t put me off. After all, many people believe in us. They believe that with WallCraft we will develop a great product that will succeed in the market.

Dr. Sarah Hintermayer, winner of the 2017 Entrepreneurship Award

I describe it as a journey into the unknown: You get involved, you have fun, but you’re also slightly afraid. You let it challenge you, cope with the challenges, and work on them. You learn and realize that you're trying something completely new.

Dr. Marta Cañas-Ventura, winner of the first Entrepreneurship Award in 2016