When DTU Startup Day is held on 15 May 2025, it will be the fifth consecutive year that DTU invites industry, investors, politicians and other interested parties to meet the new generation of tech entrepreneurs at the university and demonstrate cutting-edge technologies and prototypes.
The day will also feature debates and panel discussions from leading figures such as Minister for Education and Research Christina Egelund, CEO of NIL Technologies Theodor Nielsen and Head of the Board of DTU and former Vice President of the European Commission Margrethe Vestager, as well as a number of promising startups pitching their ideas within AI, health and impact.
With Startup Day, DTU celebrates its extensive ecosystem for knowledge-intensive and technology-based startups. An ecosystem that, even by international standards, is one of the most well-developed and cohesive in innovation and entrepreneurship among technical universities.
DTU ranks in the top third of the Financial Times annual ranking of Europe's leading Startup Hubs.
European focus on innovation and entrepreneurship at DTU Startup Day
With talented entrepreneurs, researchers, opinion leaders and investors on stage, the focus will be on how an ecosystem can best support the path from groundbreaking technology to successful technology companies.
The day will be opened by Christina Egelund, after which Margrethe Vestager will give a keynote on Europe's strategic focus on deep tech.
Chief Scientist Jonas Bjarnø and CEO Phillip Chambers from the Danish-British startup Orbex, which makes space technology and is building a launch station in Scotland, will share their insights on aligning a deep science product focus with a focus on creating growth and commercial scalability.
Alongside the day's programme and the lively exhibition area, a number of prominent decision makers, startup founders, CEOs and representatives from foundations will gather for a closed roundtable discussion organized in collaboration with RISE Europe - a network for leading startup ecosystems in Europe - and the engineering association IDA.
They will discuss how the EU can become a global leader in research, technological innovation and entrepreneurship. A key focus will be to identify the areas where Europe has the greatest potential, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and green technology, with the ambition for Europe to not only participate in, but lead, future technological breakthroughs.
Selected points and recommendations from the roundtable will be presented to all DTU Startup Day guests in a panel discussion at the end of the day.
