For the 19th time, the Free State of Saxony is awarding prizes to the best business ideas and greening concepts. The industry and techno¬lo¬glo¬f¬fenen competition supports founders and young companies in further developing their ideas or business concepts and making them visible. All winners will be announced and honoured at the futureSAX Innovation Conference on 19 June in Dresden. Among the 12 nominees is the former spin-off of TU Dresden "DevBoost". The IT company was founded in 2012 at the Institute for Software and Multimedia Technology at the Chair of Software Technology under the direction of Professor Dr. Uwe Aßmann. After seven years, the start-up can look back on a successful spin-off. Starting with a team of 4 founders, the company now has 16 employees. The two co-founders Dr. Mirko Seifert and Dr. Christian Wende are still the managing directors of DevBoost. The former TU spin-off is a development partner for other IT companies that want to integrate software systems, develop new software solutions or extend their products. In addition, DevBoost supports companies in the modernization and automation of existing IT infrastructures.The target group of DevBoost are IT companies as well as companies with their own IT departments.

Even after seven years there is still a good connection to the TU Dresden. In addition to joint research projects, DevBoost also employs working students and offers internships to young professionals. Dr. Christian Wende is also a lecturer at the professorship for software technology at the TU Dresden. Also with the support in the spin-off phase the enterprise is content in the review. "It is also important to be able to make tough decisions and admit that the original idea is not always viable. You have to be flexible and adapt your product to the market and demand," advises Dr. Nestler, COO at DevBoost. It's also important to talk to the customers you want right from the start, to build networks and not hide behind product work. "It's all about putting together a good team. Everyone needs to feel comfortable, including people who don't see sales as a burden, but as something that is fun," says Nestler. The company continues to see its future in Dresden. The proximity to the customers is advantageous in order to be able to carry out agreements and workshops. "Unfortunately, the Dresden location is not yet very well perceived in the software sector in Germany, although there are many IT companies and corporations here. There is a great need for software developers. In principle, Dresden with its research landscapes offers great potential in the IT sector," summarizes Dr. Nestler.

With the app "twickly", with which the company is nominated for the futureSax Innovation Award, DevBoost wants to offer a platform for mobile tickets for museums. Digital admission tickets can be purchased conveniently and cashlessly in just a few steps via an app and redeemed in the museum. Visitors can thus save themselves the trouble of waiting at the cash desk. The app is financed by a sales commission. "In addition to our IT services, we wanted to create a product for the end customer. In the IT area, apps are the ideal solution. So now we have our services on the one hand, but on the other hand with "twickly" we also have a product that we developed and sell ourselves. It fascinated us to include this in our portfolio, there was an idea like this from the very beginning and it is nice that we were able to implement it now", explains Dr. Tobias Nestler. The app has been available for free download since January 2019. Negotiations with other participating museums in Dresden and Leipzig are already in full swing. The aim is to establish "twickly" nationwide, so that tickets no longer have to be ordered online and printed out or purchased in the museum itself in all participating museums.

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DevBoost GmbH                                                                                                                                Dr. Tobias Nestler                                                                                                                            e-mail: info@devboost.de                                                                                                                Phone: +49 351 89670820