MISSION KI “AI Founder Fellowship”: Top Researchers Kick Off

In the field of AI research, Germany is among the global frontrunners. To enable young AI talents in Germany to start companies and develop more market-ready applications, MISSION KI has launched the AI Founder Fellowship program. Federal Minister for Digital Affairs Dr. Volker Wissing congratulated the 11 Fellows from six projects at the opening of the Innovation and Quality Center (IQZ) in Berlin.
Starting in early February, the Fellows will begin turning their ideas into startups. They will receive a comprehensive support package until the end of October. In a competitive process, a jury of experts from MISSION KI and the acatech network selected the best ideas based on research excellence and the submitted project proposals’ innovation potential.

Federal Minister for Digital Affairs Dr. Volker Wissing:
“We are bridging the gap between AI research and business creation. With the AI Founder Fellowship, we ensure that innovative ideas don’t get stuck in a drawer but are specifically supported in their market entry here in Germany. We want young talent to stay in the country and top researchers to found their companies here. I wish the six teams now getting started every success in implementing their ideas!”

Manfred Rauhmeier, Chairman of acatech Foundation:
“The AI Founder Fellowship is a sustainable investment in Germany’s innovative strength. We welcome the fact that the project teams are now taking off. Thanks to extensive support and close networking with other actors, important impulses for effectively transferring AI research to the market can be set. The program can make a decisive contribution to retaining more international AI talent in Germany.”

Prof. Matthias Nießner, TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology:
“Germany poses high hurdles for starting a business. With the AI Founder Fellowship, we want to support researchers in taking that step. Our goal is to keep AI expertise in the country. I’m very much looking forward to working with the Fellows and coaching them in further developing the technical aspects of their startup projects.”
The following Fellows and projects have been selected for the AI Founder Fellowship program:
Project 1: GREEN-DNN – Energy-Efficient Distributed Deployment of AI Models to 5G/6G Network Nodes
Zahra Ebrahimi, Ruhr University Bochum, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
GREEN-DNN aims to develop a sustainable solution that reduces the energy consumption and response times of large AI models. By using an “In-Network Computing” approach, the need to transfer data to the cloud for AI model processing is eliminated.
Project 2: Decyte – Deciphering Immune Fingerprints
Hanna Roetschke, King’s College London, Francis Crick Institute and Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Institute of Computer Science
Julia Stachowiak, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, University Medical Center
DECYTE’s fellowship project is developing a highly innovative approach that aims to significantly improve the early detection of diseases affecting the nervous and immune systems by utilizing AI. The presentation of these diseases can vary greatly from patient to patient, making them as unique as a fingerprint. Through AI-based analysis, it will be possible to detect such conditions at an early stage—even before symptoms become apparent.
Project 3: CO-VER-GEN – Conversational Verification of Generative Content
Premtim Sahitaj, Technical University of Berlin, Quality and Usability Lab
Qianli Wang, Technical University of Berlin, Quality and Usability Lab
Daniel Röder, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Speech and Language Technologies
CO-VER-GEN is developing an innovative platform that enables companies to detect and verify AI-generated content. A dialog-based approach called “Conversational Explainable Artificial Intelligence (ConvXAI)” will be used, comparing AI-generated content with the company’s internal knowledge databases.
Project 4: AI-Driven Content Delivery for Enhanced Web API Communication
Markus Sosnowski, Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology, Department of Computer Engineering
AI applications rely heavily on stable server performance. The project AI-Driven Content Delivery for Enhanced Web API Communication aims to develop an innovative platform that uses AI to achieve significant improvements in server performance, thereby enabling the next generation of AI applications.
Project 5: VoxFocus
David Maksimovic, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Institute of Physics – Experimental Particle and Astroparticle Physics
VoxFocus is developing an AI-based product that significantly improves precise speech recognition in noisy environments. An algorithm inspired by astrophysical data analysis is used to enable speech recognition under varying noise conditions, greatly enhancing real-time communication, for example, in industrial manufacturing and construction.
Project 6: AutoML for Unsupervised Generation of Autoencoders for Industry 4.0 Manufacturer-Independent Production-Line Fault Detection
Dr. Lukas Kaupp, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Research Center for Applied Computer Science
Alexander Zender, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Computer Science
Alexander Scharfenberg, hessian.AI, The Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence
AutoML for unsupervised generation of autoencoders is developing an AI-based fault detection system that identifies production defects at an early stage. This will allow manufacturing companies to reduce costs and increase productivity—without relying on a cloud environment, thereby reducing costs and ensuring data privacy.
For more information about the AI Founder Fellowship program, visit: https://mission-ki.de/en/ai-founder-fellowship