OREANDA-NEWS. E.ON's ":agile" program, whose purpose is to nurture new business ideas, is widening its focus to include ideas from outside the company as well as those from employees. Starting on November 1, five projects will be selected each quarter to receive special support to accelerate their development. This phase, called the :agile Accelerator, will give E.ON employees and people outside E.ON the opportunity to develop and test their ideas in a co-working environment at offices in DЁ№sseldorf and Berlin. The results will be presented to representatives of E.ON's various business areas at a "Demo Day". At this point E.ON will decide whether it will continue to invest in the respective ideas or bring in outside investors.

Beginning immediately, entrepreneurs, start-ups, inventors, and students who have energy-related business ideas can apply at eon-agile.com. Up to five promising ideas will be included in the first :agile Accelerator phase. Each project will receive three months of individually tailored support consisting of financing, coaching, engineering expertise, co-working space, and sales and marketing advice. If appropriate, business ideas may be tested with E.ON customers. "E.ON's :agile program provides a broad range of support to nurture new business ideas for the energy industry," :agile director Thorsten Marquardt said. "We're providing this support because we know how difficult it is to launch a business, particularly for new entrepreneurs. E.ON and outside teams will work together in a shared space, which we believe will spur their creativity and enable them to learn from each other."

The :agile program, which provides support in the early stages of project development, supplements E.ON's other activities to promote innovation. In addition, the :agile team will work closely with E.ON's Digital Transformation Unit, which was launched on October 1 and be responsible for coordinating and propelling the company's digitalization.

More than a year ago E.ON launched the internal phase of :agile, in which employees submitted numerous business ideas. So far, about 50 employees have been invited to present their ideas, of which 15 have been selected. These :agile projects currently are hard at work implementing their ideas. There are already signs of success. For example, easycharge.me, a charging device for electric cars, is significantly cheaper and easier to install than other products. Interested customers in Germany can register at easycharge.me to participate in the pilot phase, which begins in the first quarter of 2015.