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Innovative minds: Marburg team wins Hessen Ideas Competition 2025!
Philipps University of Marburg wins first prize for innovative technology for the treatment of depression at the Hessen Ideas Competition 2025 with “MindShift”.
Innovative minds: Marburg team wins Hessen Ideas Competition 2025!
The “MindShift” team from the Philipps University of Marburg won first prize in this year’s Hessen Ideas Competition, which celebrated its tenth anniversary. The competition, which this year included 39 ideas from 15 Hessian universities, took place in the Marburg locomotive shed. The award comes with prize money of 10,000 euros and recognizes innovative approaches to solving social challenges.
The jury praised the project's interplay of scientific excellence and social relevance. MindShift consists of an interdisciplinary team of experts in medicine, psychology and neuroscience who have developed technology to correct negative cognitive biases in depression and anxiety disorders. These neurostimulation procedures are controlled by modern imaging, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and artificial intelligence (AI).
Innovative solutions in the healthcare sector
The team's initial studies show promising results: over 9,000 measurements demonstrate the reliable prediction and influence of patients' perceptions. In addition, software is being developed that intelligently controls commercially available neurostimulation devices. These devices are available starting at around 50 euros, which makes them attractive to use outside of clinical environments.
The developers of MindShift, including Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Hamidreza Jamalabadi, Alina Buschmützer, Svenja Francke and Marco Rothermel have already been awarded in the Marburg Ideas Competition in April 2025. This recognition highlights the team's innovative approaches to strengthening emotional health.
More awards ceremonies and participation
Second place and prize money of 7,000 euros were awarded to “BMDNow” from the Goethe University Frankfurt, an automated software for measuring bone density from existing CT images. Third place, endowed with 4,000 euros, went to “autonomIQ” from the Technical University of Darmstadt, which presented an AI-supported solution for the simple programming of machine tools.
A special prize of 2,000 euros was awarded to the “BERT – Mobile Test Chamber for Small Satellites” project by the Central Hesse University of Technology. The “Hairconomy” team from the same university, which developed an intelligent, networked hairdressing chair to optimize processes in the salon, was able to win the audience award. A total of 40 teams were nominated, 13 of which presented their ideas in the final.
“Hessen Ideas” is an initiative of the state of Hesse that promotes innovative start-up ideas from students, researchers and alumni. Since 2016, almost 500 start-up teams have benefited from this initiative, supported by around 5.4 million euros until 2025. Science Minister Timon Gremmels congratulated the winning teams and praised their commitment to solving social problems.