Berlin, a mecca of culture and creativity

[Hed_Kandi]

Originally Posted by Dr_Cosmo

Dessert?

[Dr_Cosmo]

BERLIN IS ALIVE
THE REMMIDEMMI
GERMAN CAPITAL
PACKAGE

......

[Dr_Cosmo]

[Avalanix]

Originally Posted by turangalia

berlin is at first a poor poor city with 15% people jobless and nothing is working in this city.
look at the new airport a desaster, a dirty city with dirty streets, Deficits everywhere and very deficient municipal services, berlin is just an enormous trash can.
berlin is not a german city because berlin has no Rigor, efficiency, seriousness likes every others cities frankfurt, munich koln or hamburg.
Everything (services, infrastructures, etc) works marvelously in frankfurt, munich koln or hamburg, but not in berlin.
you can ask people living in munich hamburg or frankfurt what they think about berlin, of shure nothing positive.
parties, have fun is the only thing the Berliners know, and no working. 4 millions of shirkers.
All Germany pays to mop its deficits and its debts.
berlin an open air trash can.

What's wrong about this? He's quite right about it.

[LtBk]

The problem with his post is how he presented his opinion of Berlin, which read like he was trolling.

[nicdel]

Haters gonna hate. Berlin isn't even as poor as some German hillbillies claim. There are a lot of affluent areas too, specifically in the Southwestern part.

[yabbes]

........................

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Two More Boosts for Berlin’s Tech Scene

The startup scene in Germany’s capital continues to grow. Mozilla, the non-profit company behind the Firefox browser, is to open a permanent office there. And the city is to get a new incubator.

“The organization set up a temporary Berlin office a few weeks ago, and on Monday it announced it is to establish a permanent base next year in the Factory, a recently-opened tech office space that houses SoundCloud and several other up-and-coming Berlin startups. What’s more, Mozilla says it’s now hiring in the city.”

“Now, this isn’t a coup for Berlin in the same sense as London’s recent announcements of new Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft offices. The Berlin office will be one of what the organization calls ‘Mozilla Spaces’ – an office with some paid staff, but also where Mozilla’s many volunteer contributors can come to hack or just hang out. In Europe, there are two similar ‘spaces’ already being set up in London and Paris.

“It’s also hard to nail down exactly what kind of product will come out of the Berlin establishment. Barbara Hueppe, who’s in charge of setting up the new team, told me it “will not have a special focus”, and that Mozilla hoped to “attract talent that will help us drive our diverse initiatives”.

“German Startups Group is a new fund set up by Christoph Gerlinger and Alexander Kölpin, both of whom look well-placed to tap the local ‘digital’ startup scene in Berlin with investments of between €50k and €250k, although it isn’t ruling out applications from further afield.

“Christoph Gerlinger was founder and CEO of games publisher Frogster before it was acquired by Gamesforge, while Kölpin is a co-founder of BerlinWebWeek and has worked with local startups in a marketing capacity as divisional director of location-marketing agency BerlinPartner.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/201...ns-tech-scene/

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Google puts its weight behind Gründer Garage, a German startup competition that isn’t limited to tech

Internet search and services juggernaut Google has teamed up with Berlin-based Entrepreneurship Foundation (founded by Professor Günter Faltin) and crowdfunding platform Indiegogo to launch a new startup competition and academy dubbed Gründer Garage.

Interestingly, the competition is aimed at early-stage entrepreneurs in any field, rather than just technology. Candidates must apply and raise their own capital through Indiegogo, for which Gründer Garage represents its first localised platform developed for the European market.

Selected startups will receive training from the Entrepreneurship Foundation.

Winners will then be announced in October 2012 at an annual entrepreneurship summit in Berlin, and Google says it will match successfully fund-raised competition ideas until a prize pot of 150,000 euros is depleted.

http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/08...mited-to-tech/

[Dr_Cosmo]

Happy Birthday Berlin! Here's a Giant Map

Berlin is turning 775 this year. To celebrate, a team of eight artists are creating a giant city map in a central square. The 2,500-meter map will be at a scale of 1:775. When it opens on August 25, visitors can walk on top, pointing out their home and office to friends.

[Dr_Cosmo]

Berlin's Nightlife: 48 Hours You Might Not Remember -Huffington Post

Quote:
And the bars in Berlin, fueled by the city's alternative youth culture, are some of the hippest and coolest in the world.

[NAMBA]

Originally Posted by turangalia

berlin is at first a poor poor city with 15% people jobless and nothing is working in this city.
look at the new airport a desaster, a dirty city with dirty streets, Deficits everywhere and very deficient municipal services, berlin is just an enormous trash can.
berlin is not a german city because berlin has no Rigor, efficiency, seriousness likes every others cities frankfurt, munich koln or hamburg.
Everything (services, infrastructures, etc) works marvelously in frankfurt, munich koln or hamburg, but not in berlin.
you can ask people living in munich hamburg or frankfurt what they think about berlin, of shure nothing positive.
parties, have fun is the only thing the Berliners know, and no working. 4 millions of shirkers.
All Germany pays to mop its deficits and its debts.
berlin an open air trash can.

hmmmm a trash can I would really like to live in!
By far the most interesting city I have ever visited in Europe.
World class museums, thriving cultural scene, easy going and friendly people, vibrant nightlife (on this point all other cities on the continent just don't compare)
THUMBS UP and long life to Berlin

[Ulpia-Serdica]

An underestimated museum, but definitively world class with a beautiful collection.

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Berlin finally starts championing its tech hub



After longstanding grumbling from the German capital’s tech community over its lack of recognition, the Berlin senate has launched a campaign to push the city as a startup center of note.

At last. After months — if not years — of complaining about a lack of official support from the Berlin administration, the city’s senate has decided to start pushing it as a tech hub.

The value of that support is yet to be determined, but there are some definites. In concrete terms, it’s a €500,000 ($623,000) marketing campaign over the next year: not a huge amount of money, but significant when you consider Berlin’s been broke for the best part of a decade.

Beyond the numbers, though, the biggest impact is the psychological boost. As I mentioned, there’s been a fair bit of grumbling from the startup community — possibly jealous of London’s more coordinated efforts to promote itself as a tech center — that they weren’t being properly championed. That was never strictly true, as Berlin has been handing out grants to some early-stage startups for many years, but a bit of overt lionization never hurt.

The launch of the campaign took place on Wednesday morning at Telefonica’s grand Campus Party Europe tech festival, held at the decommissioned Tempelhof airport.

“It has long been no secret that Berlin is a breeding ground and major location for the creative minds of the digital industry,” Berlin tech and research secretary Nicolas Zimmer said. “We want to highlight this trend and ensure that a real digital economy is created through these creative individuals and startup ventures, bringing jobs, income and prosperity for Berlin.”

Productivity outfit 6wunderkinder has arguably been the chief grumbler in the pack. On Wednesday, CMO Benedikt Lehnert claimed the city’s developing startup infrastructure was “reminiscent of the spirit and energy of Silicon Valley.”

That analogy shouldn’t be taken too far, however. As we’ve discussed before, there is only one Valley, and Berlin — which is behind that curve by a matter of decades — needs to forge its own identity.

The campaign launch came, naturally, with a slideshow that was supposed to show off Berlin’s particular strengths. Again, some elements of that were a bit hopeful: Berlin does not have, as it claimed, “ideal conditions for venture and entrepreneur financing”, for example, unless by that they mean its proximity to London.

But other points on that list ring true. Berlin is heaving with incubators and co-working spaces, it is perfectly located for skilled workers from all around Europe, it has very strong networks within the scene, there’s a ton of interplay between the tech and creative sectors, and it’s still a relatively cheap place to set up shop.

Will the campaign help matters? Perhaps a little. The focus of the marketing will be on Germany’s national press and trade events, and it’s hard to imagine that Germans in the tech industry are unaware of Berlin’s growing significance.

That said, Berlin’s startup scene really could use some championing on the national stage right now, particularly with worries over a change to freelance taxation that many say could scupper younger companies.

If the campaign and newfound chumminess between the startup scene and city authorities does prove its worth over time, it will be interesting to compare it with London’s Tech City push, which has drawn criticism from those who reckon the state should not interfere with private sector business development.

In Berlin’s case, it doesn’t look like the city is setting up any new structures that might mirror what could be established privately. The scene is already developing on its own, without much assistance.

This new push appears to be little more than cheerleading — and sometimes that’s no bad thing.

http://gigaom.com/europe/berlin-fina...-its-tech-hub/

[bolg]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Grit is a form of urban cancer to be eradicated, like panhandling, graffiti/tagging, pickpocketing, mugging, carjacks, illegal housing, illegal trash dumping, squatting. It most be fought like it were the pest.

Honestly, every city should have its gritty, more bohemian districts. It gives the city a more electrical and vibrant nightlife. Unsuccesful artists aren't unwanted, first off unsuccesful doesn't mean talentless. Honestly, nothing beats going down to the local bar or café to listen to an unknown local band. Perhaps there's even someone playing a guitar and singing songs at a streetcorner or at a metro station. And this is from someone coming from a family who've been engineers and economists for generations and lacks every ounce of artistic skill.

Anyway, was thinking about combining visiting a friend in Berlin this autumn with some groundhopping, and thought about the Berlin derby. What's the atmosphere like? The few videos I found on youtube weren't that impressive tbh.

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Telefonica Campus Party 2012 - Berlin @ Templehof Airport

Today the airport is hosting a different crowd, but one that is also looking to secure Berlin’s future as a European, or even global, technology hub.

Telefónica’s Campus Party is being held in a non-Spanish speaking European country for the first time. This vast area has been handed over to 10,000 geeks who have taken residency here for five days, 24 hours a day. Equipped with computers and other toys, they camp on-site writing code, building apps or just hanging out.

I bumped into Israeli super angel Yossi Vardi, often and without too much exaggeration, described as the father of the Israeli internet. “In a few years time,” he said, “This event could be bigger than SXSW (South by South West, an annual tech event held in Austin, Texas).”

The festival features over 600 hours of talks, debates, workshops, competitions and hackathons related to science, innovation, digital entertainment and creativity; and hundreds of hours of ad-hoc events planned by participants that continue throughout the night.

In the Berlin region, the ICT, media and creative industry – of which digital and startups are an important part — encompasses 36,841 companies with an annual turnover of €26.11 billion and employing 181,217 people directly, and about 314,000 altogether.

http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/201...to-the-future/

[Ulpia-Serdica]

[Dr_Cosmo]

Top 10 art and architecture destinations - Hindustan Times

4. Berlin, Germany

Over the last 20 years, Berlin has emerged as one of the biggest art venues in Europe with an impressive selection of new architecture, exhibits and art galleries. But even with its new art scene, Berlin will always have strong ties to the past, which can be seen at one of the 17 Berlin State Museums that are divided into five clusters. Museumsinsel (Museum Island), a complex of five museums, is the largest in Europe, and is comprised of the Altes Museum, Neues Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie, Bode Museum, and Pergamon Museum, which were all built on the site of the original city settlement. The museums' collections range from Roman and Greek Classical Antiquities, to 19th century sculptures and paintings, to prehistory and early history.

[Dr_Cosmo]

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Berlin deserves to claim its rightful place among world cities. With the recent tech & cultural boom, I have no doubt that 10 years down the road, Berlin will become something magnificent.