Ten female students from TU Darmstadt are taking part in EXIST Women. At their first meeting at HIGHEST, the focus was on exchange, networking and the next steps towards founding their own start-ups.
Entrepreneurship rarely begins with a fully developed business model. More often, it starts with an idea, a question — and the right environment. This is precisely the kind of environment that EXIST Women is designed to provide. On Thursday, the ten participants from TU Darmstadt met for the first time at HIGHEST, the university’s innovation and entrepreneurship centre.
The programme is aimed at women in the university context who are interested in entrepreneurship and want to explore or actively prepare for self-employment. Its objective is to encourage more women to engage with entrepreneurial thinking and action — and to support them in a structured way over several months.
At TU Darmstadt, EXIST Women is led by Simone Lühl. The programme is being implemented in cooperation with the universities of the Rhine-Main Universities alliance, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and Mainz University of Applied Sciences. Ten female students from each university are taking part, five of whom receive a scholarship. The project runs from April 2026 to January 2027 and includes workshops, mentoring, events and networking opportunities.
The introductory meeting at HIGHEST made clear what many of the participants are looking for: orientation, sparring and exchange with women pursuing similar goals. Some are working on existing ideas, while others are taking their first steps into the start-up world. What they share is the desire not to approach entrepreneurship alone.
“I have always wanted to found a start-up. Now I have the time and support to take the first steps and continue developing my product,” said one participant. Another described the programme as a space in which “entrepreneurship as a major goal” becomes more tangible — among like-minded peers, with additional momentum and concrete points of contact.
Networking also emerged as a central theme. The students emphasised the value of sharing experiences, learning from one another and having access to support when questions arise. As one participant put it, she wants “to be part of a network in which women move things forward together.”