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”.

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.

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.