"With the start-up competition, we are driving innovation in a wide variety of areas," says Wolfram Groß, project manager of the 'Start-up Competition - Digital Innovations' sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. In this round of the competition, there is a special prize for so-called 'FinTech start-ups' - start-ups that develop digital technologies in new ways for the finance and insurance industry. However, this year's ICT start-up competition is also open to other areas of application. Innovative founders can apply with their ideas for modern information and communication technologies (ICT) until March 31, 2017 . Anyone who does not manage to submit an application by then will have the opportunity to apply again for the second round of the competition from July 2017. All applicants will have the chance to win one of up to six main prizes worth 32,000 euros with their idea submission. The special 'FinTech' prize is endowed with 10,000 euros. In addition, up to 15 further concepts will be awarded a prize of 7,000 euros.

The previous winners of the 'Start-up Competition - Digital Innovations' also include start-ups whose development is intended for industrial use in particular:

To participate, an idea outline describing the project is required. A company does not have to have been founded yet. The ideas competition is divided into two phases: In the first phase, all interested parties have the opportunity to apply online with an idea sketch of their project of up to fifteen pages. Those who take this first step will receive detailed written feedback. The analysis of strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and risks is carried out by a team of experts and provides an initial insight into whether your idea could be feasible and marketable. In the second phase, the teams whose idea outlines are among the maximum top 50 have the opportunity to incorporate the feedback received into their concept and resubmit it within a certain time frame. The best start-up projects will be awarded prizes at IFA 2017 in Berlin at the beginning of September.

In last year's round, there was a special prize in each of the Big Data and Digital Education categories. The winners of the 2016 round can be seen at Cebit at the end of March 2017.