Anna Kocis from the Food Technology department takes first place with her brewer's grains snack ball. With her concept for a savoury, protein- and fibre-rich snack ball, Anna Kocis has secured first place in this year's Fulda University of Applied Sciences ideas competition. She received prize money totalling 1,000 euros for her product idea "DraffBite".

The snack passes natural ingredients and spent grains, a by-product of beer production. Draff passes mainly from the insoluble components of malt. It is already used in the kitchen for vegetarian fillings, baked goods or as a breading. The product is intended to fill a gap in the market, as most protein-rich snacks are sweet, according to the concept. DraffBite should taste as savoury as a classic meal, be filling for a long time and support health-conscious nutritional goals. The student's target group is primarily "busy professionals" aged between 25 and 40 who live in urban areas and have a busy professional life.

Anna Kocis will develop her idea, which she developed in the Innovation Management module at the Department of Food Technology, as part of an EXIST Women scholarship. The aim of this funding is to support women in the phase before starting a business, particularly in the development of their entrepreneurial personality and the further development of their start-up idea.

2nd place: Simplifying and automating rehab applications
Maxi Florentine Siebert, a Master's graduate from the Department of Health Science, took second place with a prize of 750 euros. With her idea "Reha4You", she aims to reduce bureaucratic hurdles for rehab applicants and advisory services. Users are managed through all the necessary steps and entries are automatically checked for completeness, plausibility and probability of success. At the end, the application is sent directly to the authorities in charge.
Maxi Florentine Siebert's idea aims to support the creation of equal opportunities in terms of health, as she explains in her concept that many people who are in urgent need of rehabilitative social services: benefits are denied them. Not because of missing personal conditions, but because they fail to complete the highly complex applications.

3rd place: Recognising hearing impairments at an early stage
The third prize, which was awarded with 500 euros, also went to a Master's graduate from the Department of Health Science. Romina Jasmin Frenzel developed the idea of "SnailKids", a hearing screening device specially designed for laypeople, with which educational professionals in day-care centres and primary schools can carry out a simple and effective hearing test so that hearing problems can be detected and treated at an early stage. All too often, hearing impairments in children are only recognised late or inadequately - with significant consequences for their linguistic, cognitive and social development. In addition to the specially developed software and hardware, the tool comprises a comprehensive training programme and a virtual counselling platform and could also be used in developing countries.

Audience Award: As usual, the audience was able to award their own prize in a live vote. It went to the "Talkothek" team, a meeting place for international students where language exchange and intercultural dialogue are supported. The winner, Katharina Khang Ling Low from the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, can look forward to a sightseeing flight over the Wasserkuppe.

A total of eight teams presented their ideas at the award ceremony at the Fulda University Transfer Centre on 13 February 2025. A total of 10 EXIST Women scholarships were also awarded at the award ceremony.

Other ideas that were presented:
Nutrinail - app that uses images of fingernails and the help of AI to indicate mineral intake (Rahul Paul Abraham and Amela Hasanagic, Department of Nutritional, Food and Consumer Sciences)
MoVo - app that enables enterprises to admit their employees to bonuses for tracking health data (Nils Hesse, Department of Business, Nele Jostock and Mathilda Allmacher, Department of Food Technology)
Win Tomorrow - platform for supporting political candidates that works with geographical data analysis (Abbas Abbas, Shinu Donney from the Department of Applied Computer Science and Jonas Martin from the Department of Business)
Automatic head-washing device - aid for elderly or impaired people (Afra Ranvankhah, Department of Electrical Engineering)