The first KTUR Startup & Innovation Nights on April 21 and 22 passed with flying colors. To the delight of the entire KTUR working group, more than 250 participants registered for the two evenings, which were then distributed quite evenly among the various event offerings.
The successful SPARK ideas competition of the Foundersclub Freiburg will take place from 15th of May – 17th of July 2021 – now as a trinational event within the framework of the KTUR project. At the ideas competition last year in 2020 80 students from different disciplines, took part to develop start-up projects based on cool ideas. During the program, the students – from computer science, design to classical business studies – worked together in teams. 13 exciting projects resulted from the competition.
Due to advancing digitalization, increasing cost pressure as well as increased customer and flexibility requirements, companies are confronted with the challenge of using their available resources more and more efficiently. Process automation with robotics is at the forefront of future-oriented human-computer interaction, both in the production and service sectors. How does the implementation of such solutions work? What challenges arise? What are the possible development prospects for companies in the region? On May 20 at 3:00 p.m., Offenburg University of Applied Sciences will bring together a panel of researchers, developers and users to discuss these issues as part of the new series of events “Future Company”.
Prof. Dr. Véronique Orian-Rousseau is Professor of Genetics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and co-founder of the pharmaceutical start-up company amcure. After completing her PhD at the University of Strasbourg, this French scientist joined the KIT (at the time Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe). Since 2003 she is heading a research group, now embedded in the Institute of Biological and Chemical Systems - Functional Molecular Systems. We spoke to Prof. Orian-Rousseau about her experience in exploiting her own research results and how the founding of amcure changed her work as a scientist.
One of the main topics of KTUR is scientific continuing education. Within the framework of the project, the team will create trinational offers, which suit the immediate needs of companies from the Upper Rhine region and consider the different legal aspects in the involved countries. We spoke with Romina Junk, leader of the KTUR working group and head of the Insitute for Scientific Continuing Education at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, about the current state and challenges in designing trinational continuing education programs.
Within the framework of KTUR, the "KTUR Startup & Innovation Nights" will take place for the first time. On two consecutive evenings, universities, startups, companies and intermediaries of the Upper Rhine region will have the opportunity to get to know each other and to exchange experiences and ideas on how the innovation network in the Upper Rhine region can grow and gain more supraregional attention.
With "Innopreneur" the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) Lörrach is dedicated to the successful innovation culture in companies. As part of the KTUR pilot measures "Starting a Business" DHBW Lörrach is further developing this talent promotion and networking offer to include a cross-border, trinational component and is opening up to companies on both sides of the Rhine. At the kick-off event of the KTUR measure “Starting a Business” on April 21/22, 2021, DHBW Lörrach will contribute its expertise on this topic with a workshop led by Dr.-Ing. Hans-Jürgen Lesser.
Professor Dr Harald F.O. von Korflesch heads the Zentral Institute for Scientific Entrepreneurship & International Transfer (ZIFET ) at the University of Koblenz-Landau. In international projects and research, ZIFET deals with various aspects of international entrepreneurship and the opportunities that the concept offers. We spoke with the professor of information management, innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational design about how international entrepreneurship can fuel innovation and start-up culture in the Upper Rhine region.
We talked with three experts for international projects of the University of Applied Sciences of Kaiserslautern about their experiences with cross-border projects. How can such projects advance regions? What is special about working together in an international team? What are the challenges and how do you personally benefit? Answers to these questions were provided by Dr. Kathrin Jörg, Samuel Hoefman and Dr. Jessica Weyer.
The first meeting of the “Knowledge Transfer Upper Rhine Circle” will take place in December 2020. This measure is part of a work package aimed at structuring the cooperation between the numerous transfer offices in the Upper Rhine region. The aim of the mainly face-to-face meetings will be to get to know the stakeholders from Germany, France and Switzerland better and to exchange ideas and experiences in the context of lectures and discussion rounds on various topics from the field of knowledge and technology transfer, also with regard to cross-border particularities. We spoke with Prof. Dr. Jörg Thietke, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Vice Rector for Research, Innovation and Transfer at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) Lörrach, about his expectations and wishes regarding this exchange format.