COEZBAY Open Grid Europe Augmented Reality Supports Pipeline Construction Challenge – In 2018, we became aware of Beyond Conventions (See Video) via social media and applied to pitch. In January 2019, we were notified that we qualified to participate in the event.
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Arrival at thyssenkrupp
On February 12, we took the train from Munich to Essen to attend the Beyond Conventions at Thyssenkrupp.
Arriving early, we got right to work testing the demos and creating a screen capture of the application right on the spot to present a representative demonstration of our potential solution.
You don’t realize the size of the Thyssenkrupp site until you’re there. The story behind is also fascinating. If you want to know more about it, you can read on the company website or on Wikipedia how the group and the families behind it have managed to make the company grow so much.
Beyond Conventions Event
There were many interesting personalities at the event. Long-standing professionals, corporates and ambitious start-up founders or teams from all 5 continents. The exchange was very collegial and friendly.
The social media team of Thyssen Krupp and some impressions captured on Instagram. To comply with the DSGVO guidelines, here is our statement.
At this point, a big thank you to the team of Thyssen Krupp!
Our presentations at various corporates went very well. The demos with the VR glasses and the Microsoft Hololens were also very well received. Nevertheless, we didn’t expect to make it to the finalists among so many applicants, especially since many of the startups were there with entire teams. So we packed up and slowly prepared for the announcement of the winners and for the departure.
We got the pitch!
Shortly before we were about to go to the participants to say goodbye, the name COEZBAY sounded through the speakers and it looked like our presentation had found the approval of more people than initially thought.
We won the pitch at Open Grid Europe GmbH for the Augmented Reality Supports Pipeline Construction challenge and shortly after we were called again to accept the award as one of the top 3 startups, which was a great honor considering the high number of participants.
First stress tests
Back in Munich, we immediately started to work on the demo we had been working on and equipped it with larger CAD data in order to expand the stress test and to make good use of the time until the negotiations. An excerpt from the demo can be found directly below.
We are growing!
In the meantime, a friend of ours just joined our team, Frederik Steinmetz, with whom we had already worked in the past. Having not worked in augmented and virtual reality before, he got an entertaining introduction to it in the home office.
Immediately afterwards, we also started a small hackathon among friends.
Off to Gescher
And soon we were off to Gescher, to our new customer, Open Grid Europe GmbH, where we tested our solution on site, geodata-supported and under almost real circumstances.
Actually, we had reserved a small car for the journey. But due to the lack of vehicles, we got an upgrade to a slightly larger vehicle. At this point a big thank you to Sixt.
Hotel und letzte Tests
Before that, of course, we did some tests in the hotel, for which the hotel room and hotel foyer at the late hour was downright offered. This must have looked funny for the employees as well as for the visitors of the hotel.
Gescher Sightseeing
After completing the tasks, we used the time for some sightseeing and visited the bell museum, for which Gescher is famous among other things.
Finale Präsentation
Die Phase 1 unseres MVP’s (Minimum Viable Product) war abgeschlossen und die finale Präsentation verlief zufriedenstellend.
Through the cooperation with Open Grid Europe GmbH, we have learned a lot. Starting with the planning, to the implementation, to the presentation to larger corporations. At the corporate level, many things are handled differently than with startups and medium-sized businesses.
We hope to continue our cooperation in the future and would like to express our sincere thanks to the competent team at Open Grid Europe GmbH.
For data protection reasons, we have refrained from mentioning various names outside COEZBAY GMBH in this article.
