The official opening then continued with a speech held by Prof. Thomas Wiegand, Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institut, which was focused on digitalization and 5G as innovation power. With 5G technology, getting and staying connected will get easier and communications will become interactive and responsive. Think of self-driving cars that have capabilities to communicate with traffic lights, smart city sensor systems, savvy home appliances, personal drones, robots and more.

The next topic of the conference was the role and function of technology parks with regard to foundations, development and growth of companies, presented by Dr. Peer Ambree, Executve Manager Technology Centres and Incubators. After the break, Vikram Upadhyaya presented GHV Accelerator, an Indian startup. Vikram is specialized for the Japan-India Cross Border Business execution. He was talking how venture capitalists and investors from across the country as well as the world, have been very bullish about the startup scene in India. With capital pouring in billions and trillions, Indian startups have managed to ‘go big’ and make a dent in the business world.

Chris Barty presented FinLeap, a Fintech company builder based in Berlin. They are active in more than ten countries, have launched several startups per year and provided up to five million Euros in seed funding. Clas Neumann, Senior Vice President of SAP AG was talking about cooperation with startups from a corporate perspective. The final topic was a roundtable with Startups from Berlin and Asia by Jan Lüdtke from Moovit, Constantin Robertz from Zalora, Kalaya Kobidvitsh from Fabcafe Bangkok, Thailand and Robin Eric Haak from Jobspotting. The day was finished with musical finale played by Wu Wei who combined Chinese tradition with contemporary work and transformed it to the vivid music of our time.

News from Berlin
Urška Čelig, Berlin Global