With the right environment, more new, innovative ideas can emerge and, above all, become reality. We experienced this again on our networking trip to San Francisco and Silicon Valley and are delighted that we can create such an environment for connecting universities and business with the Digital Challenge.

At our joint kick-off event with the modern workplace factory, we asked the question "People, space and technology in harmony - how do we inspire young talent for the working world of tomorrow?"

The keynote speech by Ralf Freter and the subsequent panel with Bo Lennart Andresen, Frederike Holdhof, Carsten Schultz, Niklas Niemann, Economics Minister Claus Ruhe Madsen and Kathrin Reinicke brought together very different perspectives:

• Spaces influence the well-being and thus the cooperation and creativity of teams.
• Opening up opportunities and promoting individual development contributes to employee motivation and identification.
• Even with New Work, a job has to be done at the end of the day.
• When it comes to skilled workers, all potential from GenZ to Boomer should be tapped.

This certainly provided plenty of material for the subsequent networking between students and representatives from universities, companies and politics.

At the Digital Challenge 2024, starting at the end of October, around 60 students in various teams will once again use their space to create innovative, digital business models within a week for Denker Wulf, Stadtwerke Flensburg GmbH, Gebr. KG Schiffswerft, Haus & Grund Schleswig-Holstein e.V. and ZÖLLNER Signal GmbH. We are looking forward to the final pitches on 08.11.24 at the IHK in Kiel.