Hochschule Karlsruhe Hochschule Karlsruhe - University of Applied Sciences
Hochschule Karlsruhe Hochschule Karlsruhe - University of Applied Sciences

IDEV - Institute of Digital Economy and Venturing

Profile Projects

Current projects

EVA

EVA - our digital employee - supports us in the evaluation of EXIST applications from start-up teams at HKA. As an AI agent, she reviews idea papers, deploys sub-agents for specific tasks and thus helps teams to submit their applications in the best possible way. EVA was developed with n8n and originally arose from a student assignment - an example of practical research with immediate added value.

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Agentic AI Seminar with Grenke

In the Agentic AI course, students were enabled to develop AI agents independently as part of an action learning approach. Building on the methods they had learned, the teams put their knowledge into practice and developed AI agents for corporate partner Grenke. This created an innovative learning space in which theoretical knowledge was directly transferred into concrete solutions for business practice. Find out more about the course here.

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Machine parameter optimization with AI

Together with Henninger, we are developing AI solutions to make drill EDM significantly more efficient. Parameter data sets from various machines are collected, validated and optimized in a cloud so that all participating machines benefit from the best settings. In the future, the AI will even create new parameter sets independently

Winter School with the SIT: Digital Platform Business

In January 2025, the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics at HKA, together with the IDEV - Institute of Digital Economy and Venturing, offered a ten-day winter school together with the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) as part of a special international cooperation. 15 students from Singapore worked together with fellow students from Karlsruhe on innovative digital platform business models with corporate partner STIHL. The focus was on an "action learning" approach: the theory was developed individually in advance via online courses, while the attendance phase in the [X]Lab rooms was used for practical application. Accompanied by lecturers from both universities, the mixed teams used a methodology developed at the IDEV research institute to validate their ideas and develop prototypes. The Winter School came to a successful conclusion with a transfer pitch in front of representatives from STIHL - a strong boost for international, practice-oriented teaching at the HKA.

Find out more about the Platform Economy seminar

Completed projects

Rückenwind

In the Rückenwind project we are developing a new digital platform business model together with our partners wind-turbine.com and let's dev GmbH & Co. KG. Operators of wind turbines in Germany will be able to use the platform to export their energy systems abroad and continue operating them there. The international target countries can avoid the expensive acquisition costs of new and used systems and purchase wind energy according to the "pay per use" principle.

The project is funded by the "Innovationsprogramm für Geschäftsmodelle und Pionierlösungen" (IGP) of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWi).

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Krypto-Assets am Beispiel von Windkraftanlagen – Segen oder Fluch für Genossenschaftsbanken

This research project (translation: crypto-assets using the example of wind energy systems - blessing or curse for cooperative banks) focuses on the impact of crypto-assets on cooperative banks.

The tokenization-based financing of wind energy systems is examined as a potential use case in the context of digital transformation and changing customer needs based on Web 3.0. The study also includes the challenges and opportunities arising from renewable energies and their promotion in the context of the global climate situation.

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Start-up-KMU

The project focuses on the founding of start-ups  together with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and on people from the university who are interested in founding a company. The basis for these cooperative start-ups is the utilization and transfer of results from applied research.

The start-upKMU project is funded as part of the "EXIST-Potentiale" funding measure of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWi), priority area "Potentiale heben" and the European Social Fund in Germany.

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PART-COM – Partizipative Transfer Communities

In terms of impact, the PART-COM (Participatory Transfer Communities) project sees itself as a contribution to an open, creative innovation society in which impulses for technological and social change should increasingly come from the citizens themselves. The project aims to involve citizens as active designers in municipal innovation projects. Interactive methods and suitable participation formats should support the co-production of ideas and knowledge and enable citizens to work together with researchers, engineers and municipal stakeholders on an equal footing.

By involving citizens in transfer and innovation processes at an early stage, the aim is not only to address the need for a right to be heard and co-creatino, but also to increase the acceptance of innovations and make decisions more needs-based, efficient and sustainable.

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Publications Team Student Research Partners