SmartAIs

Indeed - it's a wrap! 🎉 Last week, we finished the workshop phase of the 4C Medical Accelerator by Medical Innovations Incubator GmbH. 🏥🚀 We are still thrilled about the amount of valuable knowledge delivered in such a short time, the quality and experience of the coaches inside and outside the 4C Accelerator, and the speed at which we developed a profound understanding of the healthcare market. 📚💡 We are very much looking forward to the upcoming 12-month coaching phase with Ingo Hämmerle, Christian Dorn, Dr. Ramona Samba, and Henrike Stutzki. 📅👥 Special thanks to Lea Renz for navigating us through the workshop phase so smoothly. 🙌👏 It's great to be in a batch with high-profile startups like Aicendence, EndoSurge, LiSa, Powered Orthotics, Proskope, QuantiLight and relios.vision. #4CAccelerator #HealthcareInnovation #StartupJourney #MedicalTech #Teamwork #Coaching #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #BlindTech #AssistiveTechnology #Accessibility #InclusiveDesign #TechForGood #SmartAIs

Testing with users is definitely the best part of our job! 💡👥 Yesterday, we had the chance to test our current obstacle avoidance prototype with a very special member of the blind community: Judith Faltl, who is the chairwoman of the Bavarian Blind Association (BBSB) and CEO of BFW Würzburg. She is also blind herself. Most importantly, she shares our vision of an obstacle avoidance solution on the smartphone. 📱 “It’s a new way of walking for me – I walk a lot more relaxed, without touching the obstacles, getting stuck, and getting interrupted all the time.” Statements like these fuel us! 😍 🔋 Constant testing with users is not only the most important source of gaining insights for further iterations of our product and developing a product that truly fits users' needs, but it is also always super motivating to see the excitement of our testers and receive compliments like the one above. 🙌✨ Judith Faltl, thank you very much for your continuous support on multiple dimensions – we really appreciate it! 🙏🌟 [Video alt text for accessability] Start screen: SmartAIs – Obstacle avoidance app for blind people. A blind woman, Judith Faltl, is shown with a white cane and a small bag in front of her chest, in which a smartphone is stored. The woman bypasses an e-scooter without touching it, guided by the obstacle avoidance app. She is then guided around a corner without touching an orientation line. One co-founder of SmartAIs, Yamen, discusses insights from the walk with the woman. In another sequence, the woman avoids the cameraman, who has positioned himself as an obstacle. A picture of two co-founders of SmartAIs, Sascha and Yamen, together with Judith Faltl, standing in front of a wall and smiling. End screen: SmartAIs – Walk with confidence. #UserTesting #Innovation #Accessibility #BlindCommunity #ObstacleAvoidance #SmartphoneSolutions #InclusiveDesign #TechForGood #Inspiration #Motivation #Feedback #ProductDevelopment

Who can spot our co-founder Sascha Preget in the picture? 🕵️♂️ Yesterday, we had the opportunity to present on stage how SmartAIs uses robotics and computer vision technology to help blind people walk outdoors. We were able to participate in the Geriatronics Summit 2024 in the beautiful city of Garmisch-Partenkirchen as part of a delegation by robo.innovate and TUM Venture Labs Robotics / AI. 🌟🤖 It was great to see what top researchers are doing at the intersection of robotics and care and get a glimpse of what will come in the near future. Kudos to the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI) at the Technical University of Munich for organizing such a fantastic event. 👏🏽 We were thrilled to represent Technical University of Munich health robotics startups alongside Devanthro - the Robody Company and navel robotics GmbH. 🤝 A big thank you to Nicole Ebner and Sonja Stange for making our participation possible. 🙏🏼 Photo credit: Max Merget / TUM MIRMI 📸

To make the SmartAIs obstacle detection solution for blind people work in different weather and lighting conditions, we are developing methods to realistically augment various conditions, minimizing the costs and time required to record and label new data. 🖼 Check out the post by our Co-Founder Yamen Mohisn 👇

SmartAIs is displayed as one AI use case with real impact at IPAI Spaces und appliedAI Studio in Heilbronn that was opened just a couple of days ago. 🚀 Super exciting to see, what IPAI, appliedAI Institute for Europe gGmbH and AI Campus – The Learning Platform for Artificial Intelligence are developing in Heilbronn lately – especially for our co-founder Sascha, who has his entrepreneurial roots in THE LÄND. 🌞 Thank you Christian Burkhart for offering us this opportunity. 🙏 #AI #Innovation #Tech #Heilbronn #Startups #SmartAIs

SmartAIs discussing impact investing in Stiftung & Sponsoring – the leading journal for non-profit management and marketing in Germany. What a lively round-table discussion with Christian Klüber (CBM Christian Blind Mission), Anja Schümann (Reinhard Frank-Stiftung), and our co-founder Sascha Preget, talking about: 🤖 How AI could change the lives of many people in the blind community 🤝 Collaborations between foundations and startups 💸 The question of whether to be profit or non-profit 👌 How foundations could support projects like SmartAIs through impact investing Of course, some topics were controversial, but that makes for a good discussion, right? Special thanks to Nina Kraus for leading the discussion and to Erich Schmidt Verlag GmbH & Co. KG for giving us the opportunity to participate. And of course, thanks to Christian Klüber and Anja Schümann for sharing their perspectives on innovative projects like SmartAIs. (To all English readers – sorry, the article is only available in German) #ImpactInvesting #AI #BlindCommunity #Startups #Innovation #Collaboration #SmartAIs #TechForGood #FoundationSupport #Marketing #Germany

“When walking on sidewalkes, bicycles, e-scooters and also obstacles are the most annoying for me.” For blind and visually impaired people it’s not a easy thing to just take a relaxed and safe walk on the pavement. Their constant companion is the fear of running into objects. 🚧 But not anymore with the technical solution of SmartAIs. Their innovative app helps blind and visually impaired people avoiding obstacles and ensures for safer and more relaxed walks. 🚀 In just 90 days, they have expanded their team at our Digital Product School by UnternehmerTUM, developed their app and focused on their human-centric solution. SmartAI is moving forward. The were able to secure an EXIST start-up grant and can now continue to work on their goal: Revolutionising outdoor mobility with advanced AI technology. Digital Product School by UnternehmerTUM connects digital professionals with businesses who then work together on real-world problems in a positive environment. 🔀 If you want to change our world into a even better place, then apply until July 1, 2024. Batch#22: Sep. 9 to Nov. 29, 2024 💰 Get paid 1,000 EUR per month ➡ https://lnkd.in/dZdK2YtX

Yesterday we had the privilege of welcoming Andrea Orcel, CEO of UniCredit Group, in the Robotics&AI Lab of the TUM Venture Labs at the Munich Urban Colab. Accompanied by Marion Höllinger, CEO of HVB Unicredit, Andrea Orcel entered into a lively exchange with several of the young founders, and was specifically interested in their impact in the real world. 🚀 🇺🇦 Alona Kharchenko, from Devanthro - the Robody Company, demonstrated the forefront of robotics with a remote controlled service robot for geriatric care – addressing the staggering shortage in stimulating interaction and care for the elderly. As a female founder from Ukraine, Alona also stands for the talent, resourcefulness and resilience of that nation. 🚀 Dr.-Ing. Edwin Babaians, co-founder of Olive Robotics with Iranian roots, showcased the future of modular, software-defined and AI-enabled robotics. He was just back from Japan, where his team has enabled the global challenge at #ICRA, the world’s largest robotics conference. There was no need for a computer-based demonstration, since an ambitious student team from Technical University of Munich, consisting of Benjamin Knöbel del Olmo, Bastian Müllner and Linus V., demonstrated how – using Olive Robotics’ modular technology - they had just built their 'Robotic Snow Cleaning for Solar Panels' from scratch within a few weeks. 🚀 Sascha Preget from SmartAIs (pronounced ‘smart eyes’) then demonstrated how AI based digital assistants can drastically improve the life of visually impaired people, allowing them to detect and avoid obstacles when moving in the real world. 🚀 David Schmider, from Hula Earth, continued to demonstrate how novel scalable solutions help preserve the environment. The provide a ‘Data Layer for Nature Investment’, showcasing his robust, easy-to-install solution for comprehensive #biodiversity monitoring. 🚀 And finally Claire Schwartz from Certum.ai showcased how banks and other financial institutions can efficiently and effectively get a comprehensive view of the ESG-performance of their portfolio – and received a direct referral to Unicredit’s senior managers in this area 😉 . Andrea Orcel, Marion Höllinger and the Unicredit and HVB leadership team congratulated all the teams on their inventiveness, technical skills and societal purpose, appreciating their perseverance as young founders, many with migration backgrounds and overcoming additional hurdles for female founders. We as TUM Venture Labs and our founders teams were truly grateful for the appreciation and encouragement, and look forward to further deepening our special partnership with the Unicredit/HVB group. UnternehmerTUM. Helmut Schoenenberger, Sandra Bogdanovic, Andrea Rexer, Artur Gruca, Antoine Leboyer; Arne Rost, Nicole Ebner, Bastian Burger, Antonella Mei-Pochtler, Thomas F. Hofmann

SmartAIs has joined the XPLORE Market Pioneer batch #5! We are super happy to be part of XPLORE Market Pioneer, a program designed to progress on market readiness and find first customers. A big thank you to Manu Geitner and Claudia Riemann for the fantastic onboarding experience so far. Joining XPLORE reminds us why the UnternehmerTUM startup ecosystem is so strong. They offer incredible programs throughout the entire startup journey. XPLORE Venture Creator: For problem-solution fit, completing the team, and finding a beachhead market XPLORE Market Pioneer: For achieving market readiness and finding first customers XPRENEURS Incubator: For validating business models and securing the first investment We look forward to rocking the next weeks with you! #StartupJourney #MarketReadiness #FirstUsers #XploreMarketPioneer #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #SmartAIs #UnternehmerTUM

SmartAIs secured funding from EXIST - Existenzgründungen aus der Wissenschaft 🎉 Wow, what great news! After spending quite some time on the EXIST application at the beginning of this year, we received the grant notice in May. Not wanting to lose any time, we started with EXIST in June and can now officially call ourselves EXIST stipendiaries. 😎 Starting with EXIST, we have to thank two people because we don’t know if we would have made it through the application process without them: Magnus Norvel Baumann – our Start-up Coach: You have the certain feeling of what works well in an application and what doesn’t. Thank you for your relentless search for weaknesses in our drafts and for being available from early morning until late at night. We believe your entrepreneurial experiences definitely give you an edge as a start-up coach. 💪 Professor Johannes Betz – our EXIST Mentor from Technical University of Munich: With your professorship for Autonomous Vehicle Systems and the TUM Autonomous Vehicle Systems Lab, you have super relevant knowledge for the field of technology we are using to help blind and visually impaired people. We love how you combine scientific work with entrepreneurial thinking, your speed, and all the great ideas you’ve already had in such a short time. We are super pumped to work together with you over the next year! Let’s go, SmartAIs 👏