Day 1: Field trip to Berlin starts (June 16, 2016)

So here we are, the first day of the excursion is already behind us. Actually a bit more than a day, as it all started yesterday evening at around 6 pm. We headed to “Escape Room Exit”, to our first assignment that our group leaders Jeannine Wintzer and Martin Warland had organized. That was an absolutely good start for us, as we got to know each other.

After this exiting kick-start, we all headed to bed, as we knew that the next morning would start for us very early. After breakfast at 7 am in our hostel Pfefferbett in Prenzlauer Berg, we gave a short input about the day´s theme: start-up dynamics (Gründungsdynamiken). Adeline talked a little about the concept of start-up dynamics, and Veronica gave a short overview of the concept of entrepreneurship. We found out that Berlin has become one of the biggest start-up locations in Europe, and the aim of the day was to find out why it has so developed.

Our first meeting was with Christian Treichel from “Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie”. He explained us the different tasks of the company. One of them is to bring people together and to market Berlin to young talents and possible investors.

Meeting with "Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie" (Photo: Martin Warland)

After lunch we had the second meeting at the embassy of Switzerland with Lilach Guitar. She gave us an overview about all diverse tasks that the embassy has to fulfil, and she talked about her personal experience in her job. Networking has a really important signification for the embassy, and building relationships between the different actors helps them to solve problems. Especially the relationship between Germany and Switzerland is a distinct one.

After this nice conversation at the embassy we headed to Spreewerkstätten to meet Gregor Kalchthaler. He is a young entrepreneur who founded with some friends his own start up. It was really interesting to get another perspective about this topic. He explained us the different factors that are important for the founding of start-ups. The location of Spreewerkstätten has an historical background as an old coin minting factory and it suits very well for young start-ups.

Conversation with startup founder at the Spreewerkstätten (Photo: Martin Warland)

The last task of the day was to visit in smaller groups different cafes in creative environment and observe the atmosphere and feel the creative energy. 

It was a very interesting day and we are looking forward to new experiences tomorrow.

Veronica Luidalepp, Adeline Chardonnens