On 13 December 2016, the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises organised an annual event for the digital and creative industries in the Musikbrauerei events venue. 250 guests attended and listened to startups pitch their innovative products. During keynote speeches and panels innovative developments in Berlin were discussed.

During the preliminary programme of the annual event ‘Projekt Zukunft – Digital & Kreativ’, the attending industry reps were led through bunker vaults under Musikbrauerei, where nine new startups presented their products. The founders of VR concepts such as Fast Forward Imaging and i-mmersive, sparkling fashion tech by ElektroCouture, Digital Games by HARDSCORE GAMES and Digidiced as well as e-learning-platform sofatutor and booking platform dreamcheaper were more than happy to answer the audience's questions. Charlotte Dachroth and Ole Jeschonnek of HALO presented a preview of 3D light spheres as part of an installation.

Moderator Daniel Finger guided the audience through the event’s main programme. „Berlin as a Startup“ – pitch doctor Christoph Sollich humorously showcased the potential that the startup capital Berlin has to offer. Following up on this, Cornel Pampu, head of division for the ICT, media and creative industries with the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises explained how this potential is currently being used. He provided an update on the first 5G demo session that was held during ISTAF in cooperation with Deutsche Telekom AG and Nokia.

Erwin M. Schmidt of Cinemathon, Dr. Mathias Bohge, Managing Director at Reliable Realtime Radio and Jan Winkelmann, Managing Director at Exhibitionary were up next and presented their startups to the audience in brief pitches.

After a networking break, Prof. Dr. Marc Drüner of Steinbeis University spoke on the issue of Smart Data. During the subsequent panel, moderator Daniel Finger had a discussion with Volker Ziegler, Head of 5G Leadership at Nokia and Christian Korff, Managing Director Sales at Cisco Systems on „5G expansion and opportunities for the German capital“, a topic that is very prevalent in Berlin at the moment.

Another inspiring panel featured Anita Tillmann, Managing Partner of PREMIUM Group, Heinz Gindullis alias „Cookie“, Co-Founder of Data Kitchen and Anka Wittenberg, Senior Vice President, Head of People Sustainability and Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at SAP SE. The panelists discussed the cooperation between old and new economy, fashion tech and innovative food service industry concepts.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Knie, Managing Director at the Innovation Centre for Mobility and Societal Change (InnoZ) concluded the evening with his keynote speech under the catchy title “Alles Prima? Wir rocken die Wertschöpfungskette rauf und runter!“ (‘Everything all right? We rock all along the value chain’). Knie skilfully summed up the evening and emphasised the need to promote sustainable development in Berlin in the context of rapidly emerging innovations. His credo was that breaking the rules is a necessary part of creating innovations.

The evening tapered off as Berlin-based band GURR performed within the walls of Musikbrauerei.

The Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises would like to thank all speakers, attending startups and guests for a successful evening!