Saving lives with drones.
BayernLB finances progress – and fosters progress. By sponsoring “HORYZN – Mission Pulse 2023”, a student initiative by NEXT Prototypes e.V. of the Technical University of Munich, it underscores its willingness as a specialised bank with a focus on forward-looking sectors to support innovative pioneering projects in the fields of science, research and technology.
The latest figures by the Deutsches Reanimationsregister (German Resuscitation Register) reveal that at least 60,000 people a year in Germany suffer a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital. Only around ten percent of them survive. The faster they get help, the greater the chance of survival. It takes an average of around nine minutes before a life-saving defibrillator is on hand and operational. If this time is halved, the chance of survival triples. That’s where HORYZN comes in. 58 students at the Technical University of Munich are part of the initiative founded in 2019. They have set themselves the goal of developing and building a drone that transports a defibrillator to where it is needed – faster than an ambulance – so as to considerably increase the chance of survival of those affected. Because every minute counts.
“Working on a project like this is visionary, innovative. We’re proud to be able to support HORYZN as a sponsor,” commented Oliver Geldner, Sector Head Aviation & Space at BayernLB. “As a bank we not only partner up with companies: we also invest our energy wherever passion and enthusiasm for a better future can be found. BayernLB finances progress – and fosters progress.”
The students have been working on the drone for 330 days and nights, and the highly motivated and dedicated team still has many more weeks and months of hard work ahead of them. One special milestone has already been achieved: on 15 December 2021, “Frankenstein”, that's the name of the prototype, was officially unveiled in Ottobrunn by Munich and took to the air on its first flight.
More information is available on the HORYZN homepage HORYZN - Prototyping the Aerospace of Tomorrow and on the LinkedIn and Instagram channel.
