Oct 22, 2019
Digital Tech Summit 2019: Not your typical conference!
By Julia Neumann
For the second time in ZOLLHOF’s history, the Digital Tech Summit took place in Nuremberg. What at first sounds like another conference about the latest tech stuff, may surprise many with not only amazing speakers, lively panel discussions and interactive workshops but with an outstanding atmosphere, a great networking opportunity, plenty of motivation and tons of fun!
To make that experience even greater this year’s Digital Tech Summit and Hackathon was hosted in the Max-Morlock-Stadium in Nuremberg together with our partners NÜRNBERGER Versicherung, NürnbergMesse, adidas, Siemens Healthineers, Novartis, MüllerMedien, Daimler and the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy. Just imagine having the whole stadium all to yourself and 800+ other tech-lovers, hackers, entrepreneurs and creative minds who are thrilled to exchange their knowledge about entrepreneurship and technology — it’s breathtaking!
Let’s take some time to look back at the 3-day conference and hackathon and relive the spirit and the highlights of the weekend — especially for those who couldn’t make it this year!
When entering the location you could already feel that the Digital Tech Summit is much more than a typical conference. The air was filled with a contagious sense of motivation and excitement which got even more intense after the rousing opening speech by ZOLLHOF’s CEO Benjamin followed by the challenge pitches of the event’s partners. Adidas, NürnbergMesse, NÜRNBERGER Versicherung, Siemens Healthineers, Novartis and MüllerMedien presented six thrilling challenges that got more than 150 hackers hyped to finally let their brain cells get creative. In total 20 amazing hacker teams were ready to face the challenges in the fields of mobility, health and sports. Are you curious what the challenges were about? Take a look at our DTS website or skip through our latest blog articles.
Next to the hackathon kick-off, we were beyond excited to welcome a selection of prime speakers on the DTS stage. During interesting talks, they gave the visitors a deep insight into trending topics within the tech and entrepreneurial field. But not only that — in lively panel discussions the speakers shared their opinions inviting the attendees to get involved and ask questions. You couldn’t attend all talks during the DTS? Don’t worry: You can rewatch all keynotes and panel discussions on YouTube!
What is one of the first things you think about when you want to get your startup growing? Capital for sure! But do we actually need money to get a business going? Dr. Melanie Rieback pointed out an interesting sight on entrepreneurship by criticizing the classical Silicon Valley model and talking about flat but sustainable growth. To find out more about her strategy to start a company, check out the slides here.
Zacharia George, Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Startbootcamp Africa, got the audience thinking. By referring to his student life he shared a wisdom one of his professors told him: “The most dangerous risk of all is the risk of not doing what you want on the bet that you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.”, reminding everybody in the room that it is the most important thing to actually love what you’re doing now and not wait for it to happen in the future. That and other great thoughts, especially about entrepreneurship in Africa can be found in his slides.
Another great point was delivered by Timo Buetefisch, Co-Founder and CEO at COOLTRA. He came over from Barcelona to take part in a vibrant discussion about mobility together with Philip Reinckens (Country Manager Germany at TIER Mobility) and Dr. Martin Schneider (Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies Gmbh, Lead Product Manager). Talking about sharing economy in the field of mobility, he pointed out his belief “that our children and grandchildren will be amazed how we could even own cars and not just share all vehicles back in the time”. If that is the future of mobility, we can’t wait for it any longer, right?
While most of the hackers basically locked themselves away in the different hacking areas to work in full concentration on their prototypes and pitches for the semi-finals most of day 2, the visitors had the opportunity to enjoy informative talks and get to know already established startups and their innovations. 10 promising startups from all over Europe got the chance to pitch their amazing ideas in front of the jury. In two rounds of pitching, moderated by our host Amiaz Habtu, well-known from the German TV show “Die Höhle der Löwen”, the startups presented their awesome ideas on stage making. The high-class jury consisting among others of Dr. Martin Seibold of NÜRNBERGER Versicherung, Siemens Healthineer’s CTO Peter Schardt, Kristina Eickler from adidas, Peter Ottman from NürnbergMesse and startup expert Zacharia George, had the agony of choice: Who out of the many talented entrepreneurs should win the prize of 10.000€?
After a tough decision and an exciting award ceremony, we are beyond happy to say congratulations to Smart City System and the team for winning the Pitch! The startup from Nuremberg convinced the jury with their innovative sensor technology that allows analyzing the parking situation of a parking slot or even a whole city to increase the utilization of parking spaces and reduce traffic. The sensor offers easy navigation to free parking lots as well as a possibility to check the parking behavior.
During the event not only the hackers had the possibility to get creative. Interesting workshops invited the visitors to learn more about Machine Learning, Business Cases and Blockchain and to even try it out themselves. You want to get to know more about these topics as well? On ZOLLHOF’s Slideshare you can find the corresponding slides about Modern Text Mining and Machine Learning.
In the meantime, the hacker teams had the chance to qualify their ideas for the finale and be one of the six best teams pitching on stage in front of the audience and the jury — and let me tell you: the six finalists rocked the stage with innovative ideas and prototypes, making the decision of the jury even harder.
The audience appreciated the hard work, sleepless nights, burned brain cells and effort it took not only the winners but all hackers to create such innovative solutions to the given challenges once again with roaring applause.
And then it was finally time to honor the winners. Drum rolls please, and the winner is: DATAPAL! The team revolutionized the car insurance field with its solution by using data mining, combining all relevant data from different sources. Awesome! On top of that, we also want to say congratulations to MyFit for creating the best technical implementation. They got rewarded for their innovative solution to measure your shoe size by simply scanning your foot with your smartphone.
After 3 three days full of networking, brainstorming, hard work and plenty of input, it was time to end the DTS 2019 properly. Hackers, visitors, partners, and the ZOHO Team got together to enjoy drinks, food and get to know each other even better in the form of an awesome aftershow party!
A huge thank you again to everyone who celebrated entrepreneurship, innovation, and digitalization with us and made the Digital Tech Summit a special one! We are beyond excited to already start planning the next events to shape the future with all you creative and open-minded people. Until then, stay tuned for the DTS 2019 Aftermovie or check out our photo album on Facebook to get an even better impression about the event.
Julia works in Marketing Communication at ZOLLHOF and is studying Digital Business at TH Nuremberg. Being a creative mind she loves to write and is passionate about photography.
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