Part 3 of LBG Innovator’s Road

Despite the challenge of offering the programme, which was originally conceived as face-to-face teaching, online, participants and international experts were welcomed in mid-April to take the next step on the roadmap together.

So, the warm-up was done without flipchart and post-its, instead the participants worked together on an online mind map and gave an insight into their home office. During the subsequent exchange of what happened in their own four walls in the last few weeks, exciting stories were revealed, such as working together with the children at the kitchen table at home or barbecuing in the fireplace at Easter. Everyone agreed: the current situation requires creativity, but also opens up new and unexpected possibilities for “being together”.

Afterwards, the participants had time to exchange their experiences of the past weeks in groups of two or three people. Successes and challenges were located on the PathGraph and they shared with the group which part of their work currently inspires and drives them.

Uday Phadke – co-author of the scale-up manual – was the first expert from Cambridge to join the group. In his presentation on Commerzialisation Strategies, he spoke to the participants about how far they have come with their start-ups in the last few weeks and what the next steps will be.

The second expert to join in was Olav Carlsen, who not only gave the participants an overview of the business model, but also how it has changed in the times of Covid-19.

The next day Johannes Felder reported about the innovations in the I.E.C.T. – Network and how the app will be further optimized in the future.

Uday Phadke was also invited as an expert on this day and spoke with the participants about Product & Service. In the following presentation, Werner Wutscher – founder of New Ventures Scouting and program partner – reported on cooperations between start-ups and companies.

Finally, the participants were able to talk about their expectations for the next three months. What do they expect from the upcoming (individual) mentoring sessions? Which sessions are planned for the future? How do they see their further journey on the roadmap until the next reunion in July?

To this end, further milestones and personal goals have been set on the roadmap, which are to be achieved by the next module.

The I.E.C.T. – Hermann Hauser, as well as the project partners of New Venture Scouting and the programme sponsors of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft are happy about the successful third module. The current situation and the accompanying restrictions in social life were a challenge, but we were able to master it together. Online services such as Mural or Zoom make home office work easier and guarantee that programmes such as LBG Innovator’s Road can continue.

In July, all participants will come together again for the fourth module: Face-to-face or online – the programme continues, in order to support the participants on their journey in the best possible way