It is alive! Meet our new fingertips. Two weeks ago, a film team from MDR MITTELDEUTSCHER RUNDFUNK visited us to shoot a short documentary about us and our newest generation of tactile fingertips for industrial robotics. Check it out in the video below. What would you like us to grip with our new fingertips? Send us a message or give us a call to arrange a demo.

Over the last weeks and months, our engineers have been eagerly working on the next step toward our product release. Since we trust in our engineers’ work, we invited the MDR MITTELDEUTSCHER RUNDFUNK to shoot some footage for their afternoon news show “MDR um 4”, when tested our brand-new tactile fingertips with a standard industrial gripper, by Weiss Robotics GmbH & Co. KG and a Universal Robots UR5 robot arm for the first time. The tactilely sensitive gripper was able to feel soft and brittle things like tomatoes, mushrooms, eggs, and onions. Turns out: we are half the way to a pizza, and everything was successfully gripped, detected, handled, and safely released.

Click the link below, to watch the video.

https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/mdr-um-4/start-up-entwickelt-roboter-haut-mit-tastsinn/mdr-fernsehen/Y3JpZDovL21kci5kZS9iZWl0cmFnL2Ntcy8yYTdjNzQyYS1iZmQ5LTQwYmQtODI4ZC05ZDQzNzc4MTI2Mzc

We are thrilled to announce our product development collaboration with TDS GmbH and Fraunhofer IWU, within a ZIM development project. Our joint goal is the solution of some major problems in the field of general logistics.

Well distributed cargo is important in any vehicle for several reasons; two examples: Safety – bad distributed cargo can cause uncontrollable dynamics of, e.g., a trailer, leading to a high risk of accidents. Environmental impact – optimizing the distribution of cargo leads to a perfectly used cargo area without wasting space and energy for additional transportation. TDS, Fraunhofer IWU, and PowerON working towards a save way to support everybody who needs transport cargo.

The know-how of TDS regarding cargo transportation, the advanced manufacturing technologies of Fraunhofer IWU and the novel sensor technology of PowerON results in a synergy that allows for innovative solution, that will digitalize logistics.

“This is a major accelerator to an innovative product.”, Tom Stromberg project manager at TDS and the mastermind behind the new product, to be developed and continues: “We see a strong interest from our customers to digitalize logistic processes and to gather real-time data. Together with PowerON’s unique technology and Fraunhofer IWU’s capability of scaling production, we have gathered the right partners around the table, to deliver on our ambitious millstone plan, that is in front of us.”

For PowerON the project is a huge accelerator, to scale its production processes. “For us it does not really make a difference, how large our products are. It will always be about printing skins. This project is the perfect opportunity, to set up a larger scale production in our brand new facilities in Technologie Zentrum Dresden during 2024. We are looking forward to work on this amazing product together with the partners”, Markus Henke, CEO of PowerON comments. 

“For Fraunhofer, such projects are perfectly suited, to apply all our strengths, from applied research, over our experiences with production technologies and our product development skills.”, finds Marcus Knobloch from Fraunhofer IWU.

The project has a duration of 24 months and has just started. It is funded by Germany’s Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action), within the framework of a “ZIM project”. ZIM stands for “Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand”, which means “Central Innovation Programme for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)”.

🎉 Big News! 🏆 PowerON – Smart Elastic wins the Saxon Start-up Award! 🥇💥
We’re over the moon to announce that we have clinched the coveted 1st Prize Award at Sächsische Innovationskonferenz! This incredible achievement wouldn’t have been possible without the exceptional dedication and brilliance of our team. A huge thank you to each and every one of you for making this happen! 
#1stPrizeWinners#GratefulTeam#InvaluableSupport#StartupSuccess
We also want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our amazing investors and mentors. Your unwavering support, guidance, and belief in our vision have been instrumental in our success. Thank you for standing by us and fueling our growth! 🤝💰
First of all thanks to our early supporters Sandra Hübener, Frank Pankotschand Marco Rösler form dresden|exists, Iain Anderson and Andreas Richter from The University of Auckland‘s Auckland Bioengineering Institute and Technische Universität Dresden for their scientific support, Markus Bohl, Alois Eder, Martha Ivanovas and Kate Hach from Intel Ignite and Martin Richter, Hendrik Schulze and Eric Weber from SpinLab – The HHL Accelerator for their continuous mentoring and coaching, and our very early supporters who always believed in us, on behalf of all our investors: Greg Sitters form Matū Group, Stephen Flint from UniServices and IP Group plc.
Great shout out also to Impact Hub Dresden for hosting us and Torsten Fahrigfrom TechnologieZentrumDresden GmbH for building us a new place to be. And big thanks to all the networkers like Thomas Schulz from Robot Valley Saxony, Smart Systems Hub and Michael Kaiser, HTSB HighTech Startbahn, Saxony Trade & Invest Corp. and all the many important people, we may have missed here. 

Last but not least, a shout-out to the judges and organizers of Sächsische Innovationskonferenz and Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft, Arbeit und Verkehr for providing us with this incredible platform and recognition. We’re truly honored to have been a part of such an esteemed event. 🏆✨

Stay tuned as we continue to revolutionize the industry and embark on exciting new adventures together! 🚀🌟

Come and visit as at automatica 2023. Automatica is one of the world’s leading trade fair for robotics and smart automation. 

We are proud to be part of the joint booth of the Robot Valley Saxony. 

We will present our newest demonstrator showcasing revolutionary tactile sensing technology!

We are looking forward to your visit at our booth 202 in hall B4.

Oh my god! This is great news for PowerON – Smart Elastic. 

It is official now! We are nominated for the Saxony Startup Award 2023 (Sächsischer Gründerpreis). Thank you so much futureSAX – die Innovationsplattform des Freistaates Sachsen and Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft, Arbeit und Verkehr for this great news.

We are looking forward to the second round of judging in May, when all nominees present their ideas to the expert panel that will determine the award winners.

You will find out whether we make it to one of the top places on 4 July 2023 at the Saxon Innovation Conference at Messe Dresden!

#startups #innovation #thankyou #awards #deeptech #technology

We will participate at the all about automation in Heilbronn at May 10^th and May 11^th. The trade show is focused on industrial automation. We would be honoured if you visit us at booth OG-172.

To save your free ticket please use the registration link.  

We are looking forward to your visit!

Create your free ticket here:

https://register.visitcloud.com/survey/1hdf3ake1ptav?actioncode=NTWO000143PBB&partner-contact=0np4xxa434kzr&partner-invite=19ijm5u2ubrpd

Well – every tradition starts with repetition…once is an event, twice is a tradition. Last year PowerON was at the then-named “Dresden Robotics Festival“. The event was such a success that this year’s edition is even bigger, will be hosted in Leipzig and is now called “Robotics Festival”. We will be there – so a tradition is started.

The Robotics Festival gathers a curated crowd of forward-thinking industry leaders, researchers and entrepreneurs who are truly passionate about robotics and its uplifting potential in the industry and beyond.

PowerON is attending Robotics Festival with our newest, largest, most interesting and – we believe – most significant demonstrators for near-term applications in the robotics industry. Join us from 13-15 September in Leipzig, Germany. Get insights also into what leading researchers think about the future of the robotics sector, and the topics are they plan to investigate next as the robotics industry lifts off. 

Get your tickets here: https://robotics-festival.de

Book your personal meeting with PowerON via email: roboticsfestival@poweron.one

Have you ever asked what “Smart Elastic” really looks like? Here is something for you! PowerON’s engineers integrated a soft, flexible, and stretchable TouchDetect tactile skin with a pneumatic robotic hand. With our tactile skin, the hand feels its environment and reacts differently as it encounters various things. Now it can catch balls and interact with the operator. In the future, we will use TouchDetect to give tactile feeling to industrial robotic grippers, to automate still-manual tasks and make human-robot collaboration safer.

PowerON’s management and board is pleased to announce that Carsten Schumann has joined the team today, July 1st, as the Group’s Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), based at our Dresden facility. Carsten leads PowerON’s commercial strategy and business development, focussing on product-market and customer engagement to drive business growth. In this senior corporate role, Carsten operates across our operations in both Dresden and Auckland, with the core aim of shaping our product and service offers to meet identified customers needs. 

He has more than 15 years sales experience at machinery industry, in robotics, sensor and actuator products, in product management as well as in establishing and managing a subsidiary in China. His focus on customer acquisition will be invaluable in meeting our goals and objectives. 

Asked why he decided to join PowerON, Carsten commented that he sees an opportunity to contribute to the introduction and market growth of unique products which will tackle and solve today’s and future challenges in our daily life, through introduction of advanced, lifelike, assistive robots and devices. “I want to be part of the dynamic and fast growing robotic industry in Saxony, which surely is a gateway to the future”, he says and continues: “I am looking forward to working with a transformational technology, supported by a world-class international team on the one hand – while supporting local industry in Dresden and Germany on the other.”

CEO Markus Henke observed: “Carsten is an excellent match for this role and greatly strengthens the PowerON Group as we begin our market entry stage. Being located in our Dresden facility places him close to our key partners and customers, and he will be taking a leading role in the collaboration processes we have refined working with our advanced research team in Auckland, New Zealand. Adding Carsten’s skill set will bring a strong commercial & market dimension – early on – to products that are emerging from our development effort now. We are looking forward to many fruitful discussions, new impulses and a real push to our company and product development.”

Last week was good to PowerON! On 20th June, CEO E.-F. Markus Henke pitched PowerON at the connect conference…and we won. Next day, Senior Development Engineer Moritz Scharff received the award on behalf of the PowerON team.

This year’s Connect Start-up Award (by the city of Dresden) was presented in cooperation with the international trade magazine “connect” from publishing house WEKA MEDIA PUBLISHING GmbH. PowerON convinced the jury in a multi-stage selection process and was awarded first place.

The award package includes extensive communications support for us – with editorial support and social media postings, advertorials, company portraits and case studies in connect magazine. The Start-up Award promotes innovative companies, like PowerON, and gives them a platform.

Initially, 10 companies were selected from more than 100 start-ups, which were evaluated by the jury according to a points system. These 10 faced a jury in a live pitch. Members of the jury were Bettina Leutner, Managing Director at CREAM COMMUNICATION, Jessica Oldenburger, Content Manager at WEKA MEDIA PUBLISHING, Uwe Richter, Head of Department Smart City, Office for Economic Development, State Capital Dresden, Dirk Waasen, Publishing Director WEKA MEDIA PUBLISHING and Sophia Wolter, Office for Economic Development, State Capital Dresden.