Many young people feel left alone with their questions about sexual education. Antonia Böttinger, Jana-Marie Pyrek and Sarah Holzenkamp are developing a chatbot for them in the "LOVIS" project and founding a start-up in the process.
Management concepts, entrepreneurship, accounting, marketing - Sarah Holzenkamp, Antonia Böttinger and Jana-Marie Pyrek know these terms well from their studies in Business Administration and Economics at the University of Oldenburg. But they have been experiencing what it means to put this basic knowledge into practice since they started pursuing their own start-up idea.
In November 2020, they took part in the Social Innovation Camp organised by the Innovative University Jade-Oldenburg, a transfer project of the University of Oldenburg, the Jade University and the Offis IT Institute. Over the course of three days, the participants developed their own concept for a social innovation. This gave rise to the idea for the "LOVIS" project - a chatbot for sexual education for young people.
Help for young people - around the clock
"Many questions that teenagers have about their own sexuality are not answered by parents or teachers," says Pyrek. Teenagers don't always find serious help on online portals either. This gave rise to the idea of a chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to answer individual questions automatically. Another advantage over websites or advice via email: "Young people get information in real time, for example even in the middle of the night when worries prevent them from sleeping," explains Böttinger. The team chose the first name "LOVIS" to make the chatbot seem like a personal contact person. "The name is also gender-neutral and alludes to the word 'love'," says Pyrek.
The group came out on top with their concept and won the Innovation Award, which the IHJO presented at the end of the event. Prof Dr Stephanie Birkner, lecturer in Female Entrepreneurship and one of the speakers at the camp, and Prof Dr Alexander Nicolai, lecturer in Entrepreneurship, then encouraged the group to put their idea into practice and offered their support. The team had also learnt about a wide range of funding opportunities for social innovations through the camp. "We decided to keep going and just see how far we could get," says Pyrek.
Diverse support: workshops, coaching and money
Since then, Böttinger has been working on her project alongside her studies and Pyrek alongside her work as a research assistant at the University of Oldenburg. Holzenkamp, the third member of the team, is an audit manager in the auditing department and replaces Mara Wendt-Thorne, who was originally a team member. In November 2020, the group successfully applied to the Social Innovation Center Hannover, an entrepreneurship programme run by the Hanover Economic Development Agency.
Here, the young entrepreneurs worked in workshops with experts to define their target group more precisely, for example. They learnt how to use revenue models to determine how the project should be financed and how to create marketing concepts. The team also came out on top at digital.engagiert, a funding initiative organised by Amazon and the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, and won 10,000 euros for their project in addition to regular coaching sessions.
The group also utilised and expanded its network within the university. They received help from the Start-up and Innovation Centre (GIZ), among others, which supports university employees and alumni in setting up companies. Böttinger, Pyrek and Holzenkamp took part in events, for example on the topic of market research, and received personalised advice.
"A lot of passion for their own project"
The team also exchanged ideas with Prof Dr Oliver Kramer. The university lecturer in computational intelligence explained, for example, what types of chatbots there are and what is important when programming them. "Some chatbots allow their users to ask freely formulated questions," explains Holzenkamp. "Others guide users by asking them questions and thus narrowing down the subject area more and more." Both variants have in common that large amounts of data, such as pre-prepared questions and answers, must be available. In order to be able to feed their bot with specific questions from young people, the team is in contact with the target group as well as teachers and doctors.
The group now has an additional volunteer to help shoulder its many tasks. They want to create a test version of the chatbot by the winter. They are also continuing to apply for funding and are looking into the question of which legal form is suitable for their start-up - a GmbH or gGmbH, for example. They have already invested numerous evenings and weekends in "LOVIS". "Many questions and challenges only arise during the start-up process itself, but can then also be solved," says Böttinger. "You don't need a sophisticated concept right from the start, but you do need a lot of passion and commitment for your own project."
