23.06.2016|Berlin: It is a long way from a first idea to an own company. Therefore the Helmholtz Association actively supports its scientists with the program "Helmholtz-Enterprise“ on that way. A funding up to 260,000 euros is offered, whereas half the money comes from the Impuls- und Vernetzungsfonds of the Helmholtz Association, the other half is contributed by the respective Helmholtz Center. Since 2005, the Helmholtz Association has thus supported a total of 103 spin-off projects of its researchers decisively.

"The future company founders obtain the support they need to develop their excellent ideas into innovative companies," says Otmar D. Wiestler, the President of the Helmholtz Association. "It is our stated goal to bring our research more into application. Spin-offs of our scientists are an excellent opportunity. With the Helmholtz Enterprise Fund program we therefore give them a strong momentum."

Newly funded at the GFZ is the project called “HySpecMap”, which will contribute to a highly effective and efficient exploration of mineral resources.

The human eye is not sufficient to examine surfaces intimately. Hyperspectral technologies on the other hand can perceive color spectra and their intensities, which would otherwise remain invisible to us. In this way, materials can easily be distinguished and differentiated from each other. With this technology and added highly performing algorithms “HySpecMap" is able to determine the localization, quality and quantity of land resources far more precisely than currently deployed technologies. The future spin-off uses this method to conduct mining exploration as well as environmental monitoring on large surface areas, at the same time very quickly and significantly cheaper, while it produces much deeper analysis results. Later on “HySpecMap” will extended that process of hyperspectral analysis to other applications relating to surface analysis and interpretation, for example on raw material analysis at close range or quality control in production.

Contact: Martin Otto, Christian Rogaß

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