This post is also available in: Danish

RUC and Aarhus University do everything they can to promote and encourage students and researchers to pursue their startup dreams. A step, both Coana, an IT-solution that optimizes software development and Work/dPlays Aps, a work related language game developer, have experienced first hand.

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This article is published in collaboration with Digital Tech Summit.  

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Coana, Benjamin Barslev Nielsen (AU) and Martin Torp (AU)

What are you working on in your startup?

Modern software is built by combining components, which can often save a lot of time when existing components can be reused in new applications.

New versions of these components are continually released, but updating them is a time-consuming and error-prone process. Therefore, we have developed a tool that helps the update process to be completed faster and with a lower error rate.

Also read: How universities help students realise their entrepreneurial dreams: KU and AAU

What is your educational background?

Benjamin and I (Anders) both have PhDs in computer science, where we worked on program analysis of JavaScript, which is also the cornerstone of our startup.

How has The Kitchen (AU) helped you? 

The Kitchen and our associated business developer Steen Villadsen have been a great help on many fronts: they have helped us find a co-founder (Anders Søndergaard), who comes with a background as an experienced entrepreneur and therefore increases the chances of Coana becoming a success significantly; they have offered courses in, among other things, pitching for investors. They have been helpful in finding various funding opportunities that have ensured that our startup has gotten off to a really good start.

Work/dPlays Aps, Louise Tranekjær (RUC) and David Karpantschof (partner i PortaPlay)

What are you working on in your startup?

At Work/d Plays, we develop digital, industry-focused language learning games for workplaces with employees who have difficulty understanding Danish. They provide a motivating, language up-skilling experience and are built around specific work functions, so the user always enters the environment they are working with. In this way, the game trains vocabulary through linguistic instructions and links between words and objects.

What is your educational background?

I am Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at the Department of Communication and Humanities at RUC and head of the research group Language and Learning

How has RUC’s Open Entreprenuership Lab helped you?

Open entrepreneurship has been involved in application processes, further development of the idea and sparring about how I as a researcher could get copyright released from RUC. It’s always complicated when a researcher wants to develop something that needs to be commercialised, and it was good to have specialists in the legal and business aspects involved.

Then they supported the company by helping to sharpen and define the development path and provided lots of input on business models, pitch decks etc – the things that we researchers often struggle with.

Learn more about the startups at the Digital Tech Summit the 25-26th October in Bella Center, Copenhagen.