On Tuesday, 29 January 2019, the Business Forum of the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences took place for the fourth time. This year the forum was dedicated to the topic “Smart Region4 – Die regionale Transformation gestalten” . As in previous years, the event was planned, organized and carried out with the support of Professors Anke Kopsch and Werner Stork by students of the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences Bachelor of Business Administration under the direction of Jessica Muñoz Montes.
After the welcoming address by the Vice President of the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, Prof. Dr. Ing. Arnd Steinmetz, the approximately 170 participants from politics, society, science and economy expected three topical lectures in the morning.
The first was Mr. Mario Wiedemann from the Bertelsmann Foundation, who addressed digitization as an opportunity for the community. He presented interesting “best practice” examples from practice. José David da Torre Suárez from the Digital City Darmstadt management then showed in which areas the city of Darmstadt is already using digitization and at which points the city wants to push it further. At the end of the morning, the lecture “The Rhine-Main-Neckar Region on the Way to the Smart Region” by Daniel Bleher from the Öko-Institut illustrated which actions are needed to make it a smart region. The morning was moderated by Annika Hegemann and Marc Küchler, students of the Faculty of Economics.
In the afternoon, the results of various projects and studies were presented by students of Bachelor and Master Industrial Engineering and Bachelor Public Management as well as research institutions of the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. These were developed in cooperation with partners from the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, HUB31, Deutsche Telekom Technik, ENTEGA, Vitronic, the City of Darmstadt, e-hoch-3, Kompetenzzentrum Mittelstand 4.0-Kommunikation and Systeminnovation für nachhaltige Entwicklung (s:ne). Visitors were able to choose between the focus “Areas of life and fields of action in the smart region” and the focus “Prerequisites and framework conditions for the smart region”.
Following the impulse lectures, the students invited to dialogue cafés in order to provide further information on the topics dealt with and to discuss them with the participants.
At the end of the event, a panel discussion was moderated by Ms. Sina Wans (graduate of Darmstadt University, sustainable-thinking) and Mr. Pascal Pellowski (Student Master Business Administration). Participants of the round were Dr. Fritz Lauer, Deutsche Telekom Technik; Mario Wiedemann, Bertelsmann Stiftung; Dr. Roland Lentz, IHK and Dr. Silke Kleihauer, Systeminnovation für nachhaltige Entwicklung (s:ne). In addition, the first digital certificates were awarded to HEAG Holding AG, HEAG mobilo and the EAD.
We would like to thank all participants of the 4th Business Forum for an interesting and successful day!
Author: Marc Küchler