IdeaLab! is Europe’s premier student-led startup conference designed to connect young founders and upcoming founders with top-tier investors and forward thinking companies.
Get inspired by the most successful entrepreneurs, innovators and investors from all around the world.
Get to know students, founders as well as Europe's top VCs while grabbing some refreshments.
Work together with the best known companies from all over the world to get inspired and learn their practices.
Pitch your Idea! to top level VCs at our main stage and win 10.000€ in cash and many more prices.
Networking Boat, Dinner, After party:
We will ensure that you have an awesome time!
(Founder & CEO)
After having graduated from WHU in 1998, Oliver founded several companies together with his brothers Alexander and Marc. The first one was the online auctioning site Alando, which was acquired by eBay only a few months after its start for $50 million. After the sale Oliver served as CEO of eBay Europe before he went on and founded Jamba!, which was acquired by Verisign for $270 million in 2004.
Since 2006, Oliver engaged in numerous investments, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Groupon, Zalando, Funding Circle and Lazada. In 2007, he co-founded Rocket Internet and took the company public in 2014. Rocket Internet incubates and invests in technology companies with proven business models. Rocket’s active portfolio spans more than 100 companies on six continents.
(Co-Founder)
Scott graduated from UC San Diego in computing in 2002, after which he went on to work as a developer for the next 6 years. In 2008, Scott and 3 peers joined forces to found GitHub. Back then, Git used to be rather obscure and difficult to use version control system, but Scott (CIO) and his colleagues went on to turn it into the dominant system in the marked, used by the majority of all developers and companies. In 2016, Scott left GitHub in order to start working on his new project, Chatterbug. Chatterbug is a language learning app which combines the flexibility of digital language apps with the effectiveness of in-person language schools.
(Co-Founder & Co-CEO)
Hakan graduated from Bucerius Law School in 2010 and was a participant at IdeaLab! in the early days. Later, he worked at Rocket Internet as an Entrepreneur in Residence and took over the Project Lead Mobile of Zalando.
After one year, he moved on to Home24, where he was Chief Product Officer for another one and a half years.
In 2012, he and Christian Bertermann founded AUTO1 Group after they had faced the problem of selling Bertermann‘s grandmother‘s car.
The initial idea for an online marketplace for used cars was born which connects sellers and dealers through innovative in-house developed technology and therefore revolutionised the way used cars are bought and sold.
Within 6 years AUTO1 Group has grown to an international player with activities in more than 30 European markets, with more than 3,500 employees and an annual sales volume of over 400,000 traded vehicles. This makes AUTO1 Group one of the highest valued private-held startups in Europe.
(Partner)
Adora is currently a partner at Y Combinator. She previously served as the CEO and Co-Founder of Homejoy Inc. and was on the Board of the Homejoy Foundation. Prior to Homejoy, Adora worked at Slide (acquired by Google) as a lead Product Manager where she had the opportunity to learn about startups.
When Adora left Slide to start her own company she joined forces with her brother Aaron Cheung to form Pathjoy, a startup connecting life coaches to clients online. With Pathjoy the duo were accepted to the Y-Combinator, a prestigious incubator in Mountain View. After two years the duo founded Homejoy in July 2012 and since then Adora has successfully grown the Homejoy team from just her and her brother, to a team of over 120 employees and platform that serve hundreds of thousands of households in over 30 cities across the US, Canada, UK, and Germany.
Check in if you haven’t done so already, grab a good breakfast to kickstart you day and enjoy the first speeches (we’re very sure you’ll have heard of them). Students will be in for a treat: 3 Hours of SpeedDating! with top corporates will give you the opportunity to 1-up your career. Feeling hungry again? Just grab a delicious lunch from one of our awesome food-trucks.
Pick your poison: fascinating speeches or challenging workshops - something is sure to match your taste. Our legendary PitchBattle! lets start-ups battle for a 10.000 cash reward and a McKinsey workshop. Your vote counts! Who is going to take home the big prize? Vote now on your phones.
After a long day of speeches & workshops, we’ll make sure that networking won’t come short. Enjoy a delicious 3 course menu, network with likeminded professionals and kickstart the night! Once you are stuffed and satisfied, the night is just about to start! We’ll put you on our legendary CherryCruise! Party while floating down the river Rhine and enjoy a spectacular end to an awesome day!
Keeping in mind that it might have gotten a little late yesterday, we’ll start the day slowly. Get a stomach-friendly breakfast and listen to interesting speeches.
If you’re a start-up looking for an investor, this is your time to shine: 3 hours of investor/start-up SpeedDating! will give you more business opportunities than you could imagine.
Since breakfast might not have been the most important meal of the day, we’ll make sure there’s enough lunch to get you satisfied. There’s plenty time to network or participate in a workshop without worrying about missing out on a speech. The closing remarks will take place in H001 after which we’ll proceed to the dinner.
After getting dinner, there is obviously only one way left to end this awesome conference: the legendary IdeaLab! AfterParty! Good music, good people and an awesome atmosphere - what else could one wish for?
Last year’s conference featured an inspiring atmosphere among hundreds of engaged students, founders and investors. Thanks to an amazing speaker line-up, exciting workshops as well as numerous networking opportunities, there wasn’t a single boring minute. Watch the video and convince yourself!
Last year’s conference featured an inspiring atmosphere among hundreds of engaged students, founders and investors. Thanks to an amazing speaker line-up, exciting workshops as well as numerous networking opportunities, there wasn’t a single boring minute. Watch the video and see for yourself!
