SMART GUIDE

The SMART GUIDE project aims to fundamentally rethink entrepreneurship at the University of Duisburg-Essen through digital approaches and to significantly accelerate start-up activities by leveraging artificial intelligence. Funded under the Start-up Center.NRW program, the university is further developing its entrepreneurial landscape into a high-performing innovation ecosystem for AI-based products and business models. At the core of the project is the systematic automation and support of key steps in the start-up process using established AI technologies, enabling founding teams to move from idea to market more quickly, data-driven, and efficiently.

Within this framework, an Innovation Search Engine is being developed and tailored to support innovation scouts in their scouting and screening activities. The tool enables the structured identification, analysis, and evaluation of relevant research and innovation potentials and serves as an intelligent interface between academic research and entrepreneurial application. By facilitating targeted knowledge transfer from research to start-ups, SMART GUIDE helps translate promising scientific insights into market-ready innovations at an early stage and strengthens the connection between research excellence and entrepreneurial impact.