InnovationFestival @karlsruhe.digital ignites digitalization fireworks
Looking back: InnovationFestival 2020: The first InnovationFestival @karlsruhe.digital took place on October 16, 2020 – and showed 2,000 viewers from 16 countries the digital innovative power of the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion in a livestream.
“Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic at the latest, we have all become aware that without digitalization, we would be almost completely paralysed in many areas. This makes it all the more important that the karlsruhe.digital initiative is actively shaping the digital future of the fan-shaped city. The InnovationFestival makes an important contribution here!” With these words, Gabriele Luczak-Schwarz, First Mayor of the City of Karlsruhe, opened the event last Friday at the ZKM I Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.
The InnovationFestival was designed as a hybrid event: 40 invited guests gathered in the ZKM Media Theater at 2 p.m. to attend the keynotes and keynote speeches on site. At the same time, the entire event was broadcast online via a free livestream. This gave viewers from all over the world the opportunity to be there live to get an idea of the diversity and uniqueness of Karlsruhe’s innovations in the digital field.
The event was moderated by Tijen Onaran, whose company Global Digital Women is committed to the networking and visibility of women in the digital sector: “Innovation has a lot to do with digitalization. It’s not just about sending emails. For some, that may be digitalization enough. But for others, digitalization starts with artificial intelligence. And that’s exactly how we’re immersing ourselves in a wide variety of areas today. In science, business and administration. But at the end of the day – I’m an entrepreneur myself – I keep realizing that digitalization starts with the individual.”
Martin Hubschneider, founder of CAS Software AG and Managing Director of the high-tech entrepreneur network CyberForum, used his keynote speech for a world premiere: the presentation of the fair.digital seal of approval. This is intended to emphasize and strengthen three central principles for digital products and services in the future: Data protection, transparency and fairness. “It’s about digital sovereignty,” emphasized Martin Hubschneider. “If many companies get involved and we all pull together, then we have a great opportunity to shape our digital world together.”
Holger Hanselka, President of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), addressed the catalytic effect of the corona pandemic on digitalization in Germany and the extent to which this has an impact on coexistence and, in particular, on teaching at KIT.
Digitization was also the focus of the presentation by Prof. Dr. Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl, Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI: “Innovations always take us one step further. However, innovations are also dependent on the framework conditions. We need to cultivate experimentation. It is crucial to involve society and discuss digitalization together. The InnovationFestival offers space and opportunity for this. It makes the people behind the ideas visible.”
From the smart city to inclusive navigation and dolphin hacks
The InnovationFestival had a clear objective: to make innovations from the Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion visible. In the run-up to the event, institutions and companies from business, science and administration were invited to submit their concepts. From the 60 applications received, the jury, consisting of members of the steering committee of the karlsruhe.digital initiative, selected the best 15 digital innovations.
For example, Stadtwerke Karlsruhe presented its smart DemoLab under the motto “Smart City to touch”, EXXETA focused on green urban logistics and Routago showed an AI-based technology platform for intelligent navigation. The Karlsruhe research factory for AI-integrated production, simultaneous automatic translation of presentations and social IT remarketing were also key topics at the InnovationFestival.
If you still want to know what dolphins have to do with hacking a smart home, you can find the answers in the recording of the event livestream:
InnovationFestival inspires spectators
The InnovationFestival was set up to present a replacement for the Colourful Night of Digitalization in times of Corona. “Today’s format has shown that the creative minds of the karlsruhe.digital initiative once again had the right instinct to transfer the enthusiasm for innovative digital projects, which caused so many citizens to swarm to the hotspots of digitization throughout the city during the Colourful Night of Digitization, into the virtual space,” says Gabriele Luczak-Schwarz, one of the chairs of the karlsruhe.digital initiative. “Four-digit access figures from 16 countries are a great result for the livestream and I am pleased that we have chosen the right format.”
“We created an emergent platform and at the beginning, we brought nothing to the table except curiosity and confidence. Suddenly we had 60 great applications on the table from which we had to make a selection,” enthuses Martin Hubschneider, one of the chairmen of the karlsruhe.digital initiative and the idea behind the InnovationFestival. “I was particularly pleased: We have seen do-gooders on stage today who have contributed their views and their commitment.”
Professor Dr. Thomas Hirth, one of the chairmen of the karlsruhe.digital initiative and Vice President for Innovation and International Affairs at KIT, is also looking forward to the Colourful Night of Digitalization 2021: “I’ve worked at many locations, but I’ve never experienced such great cooperation between business, science, politics and society. We can be proud of this in Karlsruhe. I thought this year’s hybrid format was very successful, but since Karlsruhe is a huge real-world laboratory, we also rely on traditional formats to make digitalization visible and tangible for citizens. And the best way to do this is to give people a look behind the scenes of research laboratories so that they can touch and try out research. This requires formats such as the Colourful Night of Digitalization.”