Start-ups

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Better business, better future

Through the creation of start-ups, students graduate with more than a degree, companies get access to bright talent and technology, and researchers can generate evidence-based research. It is no wonder start-ups are a core focus at the Centre for Technology Entrepreneurship. Start-ups drive innovation and can be a force for good in the world. We develop partnerships and programmes that build and nurture entrepreneurs and their spinoffs.
We believe collaboration, across backgrounds, competencies, sectors, and the world, is key to applying technology to solve real world problems. We focus on building strong partnerships and increase knowledge transfer and entrepreneurial collaboration globally.

We work with student and research-based start-ups in three ways

DTU X-Tech Entrepreneurship programme

DTU X-Tech Entrepreneurship is a 13-week and 10 ECTS DTU immersive entrepreneurship course that combines engineering, business and marketing students, inventions, patents and technological needs from industry partners and DTU research to create world-changing solutions. This course incubator assigns an industry mentor with experience in the technological field of the project to each team, and provides free access to prototyping facilities, DKK 5,000 for equipment, support from product and business development specialists, and lectures and keynotes on entrepreneurship.

More about DTU X-Tech Entrepreneurship

Open Entrepreneurship is a collaborative initiative between Danish universities

Open Entrepreneurship is a Danish initiative that aims to turn world-class research into world-class start-ups. Denmark has excellent leading researchers, but how can their knowledge and efforts benefit society? Studies have shown that matching research teams with experienced and external entrepreneurs creates more sustainable businesses. This commercialization catalyzes research and knowledge into products or processes that generate value for society.

Visit Open Entrepreneurship's website

DTU's MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship

Graduate with a degree and a start-up

DTU’s MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship (cand.tech) programme nurtures and develops entrepreneurs and their start-ups. Throughout this 2-year entrepreneurial journey, students experience academic learning and hands-on training that support their transformation into entrepreneurs. We invite students from over 300 bachelor degrees to the programme, as we believe it takes a team of people from different academic backgrounds who share one thing in common - the desire to apply technology for the benefit of people, society and the world - to create breakthrough solutions.

Explore

corporate-university entrepreneurship success story

Supplying African villages with clean drinking water

A group of DTU students have developed an idea on how to supply villages in Africa with clean drinking water. “Clean water is one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and a very significant global challenge that we chose to address. We started by narrowing our focus down to looking at the supply of drinking water in small urban communities in Kenya,” explains Kavikrishnan Balakrishnan, who has been studying at DTU since 2016. Grundfos, a sponsor for one of DTU X-Tech’s focus areas, has secured the rights to the project and employed the students to complete it.

Read article about this project

New start-up stores solar energy in salt to
make cooking safe

Every year, 4 million people, primarily women and children in rural villages, urban slums and refugee camps, die from preparing meals over open fires. DTU X-Tech finalist ServedOnSalt developed rechargeable batteries that store solar energy in salt, which cost half the price of charcoal, and make cooking clean, affordable and safe.

Visit ServedOnSalt's website

Get in touch. Let us build the future, together.

Thomas J. Howard

Associate Professor &
Head of Impact Lab

Contact details

LinkedIn profile
Research profile

Do not hesitiate to get in touch

My main area of interest is in technology entrepreneurship, in particular, in biomass processing, Mechanical and hard-tech based start-ups/spinouts.

In addition to the above, I have deep expertise in the area of robust design, quality and reliability engineering, where I have many research publications, new methods and approaches. I provide industry training courses on a regular basis in the field of robust design for both international and domestic clients.

Always open for collaboration and business and am extremely good at connecting the right people together and making resources available. Do not hesitate to get in touch.