Berlin, a mecca of culture and creativity

[Chrissib]

Originally Posted by Dr_Cosmo

Gross.

[Dr_Cosmo]

Originally Posted by Chrissib

Gross.

I say its fun.

The Man Behind Berlin’s ‘Tech City’ Initiative - Wall Street Journal Video

[Tiaren]

NOOOOO!! Why did you quote that fugly, cheap thing again?! I was hoping, I could one day enter this thread, without having to see her. Now she's on another page...

[Dr_Cosmo]

Originally Posted by Tiaren

NOOOOO!!

Whats wrong with Micaela ?

[Ulpia-Serdica]

TU Berlin is also coming in to help boost the city's tech scene.

TU Berlin finds the right formula for nurturing entrepreneurs



Spin-outs from TU Berlin are multiplying despite the tough economic climate. This success holds lessons for other universities on how to promote entrepreneurship

The Technical University of Berlin excels at churning out top engineering and science graduates, but lately it has started minting something new – technology entrepreneurs. Over the past four years, TU Berlin students and researchers have created an average 33 start-up companies a year, more than double the rate of the previous four years.

That’s a company-creation pipeline that ranks among the best for any European university, including those where entrepreneurship has a longer and deeper tradition, such as Cambridge University or ETH Zurich. The relatively rapid creation of a hotspot for entrepreneurship at TU Berlin - despite a tough economic environment - holds valuable lessons for other universities keen to support the same dynamic.

Most important is getting the ecosystem right, says Agnes von Matuschka, co-director of the TU Berlin Centre for Entrepreneurship. In addition to courses and incubator space, company founders need regular contact with business angels, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, service providers, role models, developers, analysts, headhunters, alumni and corporations – a networking community to help guide their idea to market.

The three-year-old Centre for Entrepreneurship, is a one-stop shop for students and researchers and a key catalyst. The number of start-ups at TU Berlin rose sharply after the first supporting activities were launched in 2007. At one-day business modelling workshops, for example, five external experts evaluate students’ business plans and help them tackle any problems.

It’s not a miracle

Before designing the TU Berlin Centre for Entrepreneurship programme, its staff benchmarked successful counterparts at Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ETH Zurich. Sixty per cent of TU Berlin’s start-ups are information technology companies. “It’s not a miracle what we do. The US tested the approach 20 years ago, and we took it over,” says Jan Kratzer, chair for entrepreneurship and innovation at TU Berlin and co-director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship.

The TU Berlin center now employs a staff of 25 professionals who coach TU students, researchers and professors on how to set up a company, obtain venture capital and win government grants to commercialise their technology. Kratzer and von Matuschka also personally contact 50 professors a year for new ideas and help in mentoring students keen to create a company. “The strategic cooperation between my chair and the start-up service was a milestone,” says Kratzer. “It linked the faculty to the administration. Entrepreneurship became more popular and more professors became aware of the centre’s programme.”

International financing
Equally important, the centre connects entrepreneurs with the community of investors and external players interested in backing new technologies and innovation, including international contacts. “A community has formed with events and places where entrepreneurs can meet,” says von Matuschka, noting a small core of promising companies have received international financing.

Bringing alumni closer to the university and its start-ups is another key to TU Berlin’s success growing start-ups. The centre’s staff compiled a book profiling TU Berlin’s successful entrepreneurs and they are regularly invited to participate in lectures and workshops. “We’ve succeeded in opening doors and winning them over as mentors, teachers and angels,” says von Matuschka.

In 2011 TU Berlin garnered an accolade as one of Germany’s top three entrepreneurial universities. Each received a €3.2 million grant from the German Ministry for Economy and Technology to improve the culture for start-ups. “It’s an excellence programme in entrepreneurial climate and support,” says Kratzer.

Creating a prototype

In fact, German government programmes are now better designed and more effective at supporting the efforts of universities such as TU Berlin. They include monthly stipends of up to €2,500 for researchers interested in commercialising their technology, an accelerator programme to help German start-ups establish US subsidiaries and apply for US patents, and a matching-funds programme for business angels. Students who win the so-called EXIST start-up awards receive up to €17,000 for creating a prototype and €5,000 euro for coaching.

Since 2010, TU Berlin also has benefitted from European Commission efforts to promote entrepreneurship on campus through the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT). In 2010, the EIT launched three pan-European Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) that link universities and industry and promote innovation and start-ups. TU Berlin participates in two of those communities – EIT ICT Labs and Climate-KIC. “Through the KICs, we have close partnerships with industry – it’s is a door opener,” says Kratzer.

Each KIC runs a summer coaching and pitching competition for student entrepreneurs including sessions on partner university campuses to build international ties. “The KICs have provided an opportunity to enlarge the scope of our world,” adds Kratzer.

More to do

Despite TU Berlin’s achievements, Kratzer and von Matuschka say there is more work to do. Fifty per cent of the centre’s work still focuses on inspiring students and researchers to consider an entrepreneurial path, whereas at universities in the US or Israel, the interest is already there.

“Germany started developing an entrepreneurial culture on campus quite late,” explains Kratzer, noting that the country’s first professor for entrepreneurship was created in 1999. His own chair for entrepreneurship at TU Berlin was created in 2009. “For 10 years [of effort], we have a fine result. Ten years from now, I think we will be able to overcome the negative image of entrepreneurship in Germany,” he says.

Of course, the real test is making sure university start-ups survive and grow. TU Berlin recently linked up with the University of Karlsruhe and the Technical University of Munich to study the survival rate of their combined pool of start-ups. The first assessment is due in November. If the survival rate for the first five years is high, this new crop of start-ups will mark not only a breakthrough in teaching entrepreneurship, but also a critical shift building a more innovation-driven European economy.

http://bulletin.sciencebusiness.net/...-entrepreneurs

[Dr_Cosmo]

Breaking News:

For the first time ever the Duck family is visiting Europe.

And guess where they heading first....

[bolg]

What? I read alot of Donald Duck comics when I was a child, especially the comics by Don Rosa. And from what I remember they were in Europe plenty of times, and they've even been in Magdeburg.

[Chrissib]

I think most of the times they visited Italy, but only because many of the disney comics are made in Italy.

[Dr_Cosmo]

The super city - wish / The Australian

Quote:
This is the fifth issue of WISH that we've dedicated to a single city. And for me, at least, it's the first time we've produced an issue in a city that I had never been to before.

When we made the decision to do our New York, London, Paris and Los Angeles issues it was largely because I knew each city fairly well and had a good idea of what to see, what to do, who we should approach for interviews and what locations we should choose for our fashion shoot. To be perfectly honest, we chose Berlin because every time we published one of these destination issues, people - colleagues, friends, readers - kept telling me that we should go to Berlin next. Never let it be said that I don't listen.

Of all the issues and photo shoots we've worked on overseas, this one was by far the most complex and challenging but, as is often the case, it was also the most rewarding. Now having been there, if there's one word that sums up Berlin for me it's super. During the week we were working in the city we'd often hear that someone was "super busy" or if they did have time to meet with us they were "super pleased" to do so.





Appetite for life - wish/ The Australian

Quote:
ONE of Europe's most enticing cities, Berlin has emerged from its tumultous past with its gaze set firmly to the future. A hotbed of creativity, it's a dynamic and happening place to be (and it's one of the last affordable capital cities in the world).

Shops, bars, restaurants and galleries have emerged in interesting locations, sometimes in disused factories, warehouses, bunkers or railway stations, where the spaces are transformed and reinvented, oozing personality and difference. The design and architecture may be classic or contemporary, from Bauhaus to Mies van der Rohe, minimalist to Baroque, industrial glam or grunge, but it all contributes to the city's unique aesthetic. Street fashion is avant-garde and innovative, the music is edgy, the atmosphere electric, even anarchistic. Retail therapy is alive and thriving and it's possible to firmly treasures that are Berlin-specific - great in an era of international homogeny. And, not surprisingly, the city's creativity and sense of liberation and freedom shines through in its dynamic food culture.

[Dr_Cosmo]

Hipster Berlin

Photo Blog at its finest

image hosted on flickr







http://photo.kodal.de/

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Berlin: Europe’s fastest growing tech hub

As adventure-hungry young people flock to the capital and technology fuses with Berlin’s creative community, a thriving entrepreneurial culture has formed and is growing at a rapid pace. So what comes next? Carmen Reichman reports

For many, the Berlin start-up scene was a ticking time bomb. Home to people from all parts of the world, the German capital offers an array of different languages and a lively party scene. Armed with the teachings of Eric Ries and Fred Wilson, young Berliners have stormed the market helped by incubators such as Samwer Brothers' Rocket Internet. These young entrepreneurs are ready to challenge the German status quo that has earned the nation a reputation of being too scared to take risks. They benefit from a dense and supportive ecosystem, a good geographical placement within Europe and low overheads due to the city's vast amount of real estate, including old factory buildings.

Berlin's venture scene can be traced back 10 years to the dotcom bubble, which saw many new entrepreneurs setting up for the first time. The current boom in Berlin venture, however, started only about five years ago, with the last two years in particular seeing an acceleration of international interest in the city. Berlin has become particularly strong in creative technological development such as consumer oriented tech, e-commerce and mobile, with eight out of 10 start-ups falling into these sectors, as estimated by Christian Thaler-Wolski, investment manager at Wellington Partners.

"It's all coming together in Berlin", says Thaler-Wolski. "The city now has enough well-known angel investors and companies that are funded by well-known international venture firms to build up a reputation for itself. I think a few years ago, big US start-ups went straight to London for their European base, whereas now they either head to Berlin directly or they look to Berlin as the next step after London." Start-ups that have internationalised out of Berlin include Airbnb, Etsy, Fab.com and Citydeal, which was bought up by Groupon.

Berlin is home to a number of angel syndicates and small funds operating in the €5-10m under-management range. However there are also large international venture capital funds that invest in the city, including Sunstone Capital, Index Ventures, Wellington Partners and Union Square Ventures, which invested in SoundCloud.

The capital also features venture capital-like organisations that specialise in helping young businesses off the ground between the seed and series-A rounds. Alexander Kölpin, co-founder of German Startups Group, explains: "While we know that you need a series A or B to grow a company internationally, we believe that you can start a business with a relatively small amount of capital nowadays. Young businesses are increasingly looking for smaller amounts of money and to give away smaller stakes. We are here to bridge that gap."

Start-ups from scratch
Unlike London's early-stage scene, Berlin's has grown organically and not profited from government-backed initiatives. The city has an investment bank, IBB, that offers loans and makes a few investments, but the amounts they work with are not really relevant, says Thaler-Wolski: "If they ten-folded their resources I'd be impressed, but that would also create market distortion".

What Berlin profits from is a special dynamic, says Stefan Glaenzer, founding partner at Passion Capital: "Berlin is probably the quickest growing digital hub. It still lags behind London but it's got a very good dynamic. I've been involved in the German start-up scene since 1997 and it has never been as vibrant and active as it is now. What's really changed is the Anglo-Saxon interest coming from the UK and the US to invest in German start-ups."

For some, what is still missing in Berlin is a mega-exit to really drum up interest and provide a role model that young entrepreneurs can aspire to.

The city enjoyed a few big exits 10 years ago and in 2010 it saw Brands4Friends, a company operated by Private Sale, sold to eBay for $200m. But a grand exit in the leagues of Skype is what Berlin still needs, says Thaler-Wolski: "In the past three years there has been a number of promising companies emerging including Gameduell, Wooga and SoundCloud, but the real big bang is still to happen. And that's what everyone is waiting for."

http://www.unquote.com/dach/analysis...owing-tech-hub

[Ulpia-Serdica]

[goschio]

Originally Posted by Dr_Cosmo

Hipster Berlin

Photo Blog at its finest

image hosted on flickr







http://photo.kodal.de/

Gammler

[Suburbanist]

Now that Berlin is becoming a high-tech hub, hopefully a similar trend to other high-tech hub catches up: accelerated gentrification and a cleanup in areas that are run-down.

At least it appears after having been left out the real estate hot market of the 1990s and early 2000s due to massive oversupply of flats, now things are improving, and famous districts are becoming more expensive to live, so with more property tax money the city could probably do a better job cleaning itself up and getting rid of its still filthy and gritty areas like London did in the early 1990s and San Francisco did in the late 1990s.

[El_Greco]

Property getting more expensive is a good thing?

I like these alternative/hipster areas I think they add a lot of energy to a city. Getting rid of them and turning the place into sterile/rich ghetto isnt a good idea.

[Suburbanist]

Originally Posted by El_Greco

Property getting more expensive is a good thing? .

For the city, it surely is. More expensive property = more property taxes = more money for Berlin to invest in city beautification, better sidewalks, properly signaled road lanes and crosswalks, new parks and public spaces, new U-Bahn lines etc. Without money, the city can't invest.

Things are changing fast, but in 2006 rents in Berlin for equivalent (location, age, design, facilities) flats were 60% lower than those in Munchen and half of the cost of Frankfurt flats.

That attracted a lot of relatively poorer (compared to other big German cities) inhabitants, with not as much money to spend, and crippled the city finances.

[El_Greco]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

For the city, it surely is.

Really? Im curious whats so great about people not being able to afford a place of their own?

That attracted a lot of relatively poorer (compared to other big German cities) inhabitants

Who created one of the most vibrant cities in Europe.

[Chrissib]

Originally Posted by El_Greco

Property getting more expensive is a good thing?

I like these alternative/hipster areas I think they add a lot of energy to a city. Getting rid of them and turning the place into sterile/rich ghetto isnt a good idea.

That is only possible because Berlin recieves billions in aid by richer states like Hesse or Bavaria. That has to stop, and if those hipster areas die with it or survive, so be it. But this aid has to stop. Berlin should stand on it's own feet.

[nicdel]

I think that Gentrification and "hipsterazation" will continue to exist regardless of the increasing property values or the improving financial and economic situation. The "creative" folks like "artists, musicians or "hipsters" will just move to other run-down areas until these are fully gentrificated. That's how it goes.

[friedemann]

If the property values increase all over in Berlin, the hipsters, solely living from love and peace, will have problems to pay the rent.