Search now on for culture and creative pilots

7 July 2021

Enter your innovative ideas before deadline on July 25

Applicants now have until the deadline of July 25, 2021 to submit their entries for the national cultural and creative pilot award announced by the German government. The search is underway for projects by creative entrepreneurs and start-ups that shape social change. Launched in 2010, the award is presented annually. Previous winners include Franziska Altenrath and Alexandra Herget of the Hamburg-based B2B sustainability agency Tutaka and the team behind the Gobanyo shower bus for the homeless.

Cultural and creative pilots' glimpses of future

Sylvia Hustedt, initiator of the award and director of the u-institute for entrepreneurial thinking, said: "Now it is particularly important to support founders who go their own way courageously and show us new perspectives on the future." The cultural and creative pilots focus on the title holders' personalities. "We strengthen the entrepreneurs' awareness of their creative strengths and ideas by offering them individual screenings, workshops and a unique network - and thus an ideal opportunity to drive their own entrepreneurial goals and expand their visions," she added.

More visibility for cultural and creative ideas

The winners of the award receive a one-year mentoring programme tailored to their business goals and backing from a network of experts and successful founders. Self-employed people, founders and companies in the cultural and creative industries and interfaces with other sectors can apply for the award. Last year's award-winning ideas included the livestreaming of DJ sets by United We Stream in Hamburg and elsewhere despite the lockdown, the production of flipbooks for children with Down Syndrome and hearing and speech impairments (Talking Hands) and the production of sustainable knitting yarn from dog hair (Yarn Sustain).

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