This year, having been engaged in promoting innovation and technology since 1978, VDI/VDE-IT is celebrating its 40th birthday. To celebrate the big anniversary, 200 guests gathered at the German Museum of Technology. Together with VDI/VDE-IT, the guests spent some time looking back at the past and ahead to the future. The company’s shareholders, VDI and VDE (represented by Ralph Appel, Director of VDI, and Ansgar Hinz, CEO of VDE) outlined the role of VDI/VDE-IT – both now and in the future. They said that in order for the company to continue tackling the key challenges, such as digitalisation, there would be an increased need for cross-sectoral thinking. They wished our company well on the occasion of its birthday by saying that they hoped it would continue on its innovative course and that, in the interest of Germany as a business location, it would keep enhancing the transfer of technology on behalf of Germany’s government.
Two long-term clients and friends of VDI/VDE-IT expressed their kind wishes and hopes for the company’s future as well. In their keynote speeches, they also referred to some important milestones in the company’s history. Keynote speaker Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dieter Lukas, head of the ‘Key Technologies – Research for Innovation’ department at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, emphasised that the rapid, flexible way our company acts was a compelling argument – it highlighted the need for project management agencies. Dr. Andreas Goerdeler, head of the sub-directorate ‘Digital Agenda for Germany and Europe’ at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, spoke about how the company has been pressing ahead with implementing innovative concepts. The success story he used as an example was the start-up contest. Experts from VDI/VDE-IT have been involved in running the contest since it started – more than 20 years ago.
VDI/VDE-IT employees took to the platform to give five Science Slam presentations. This part of the event was hosted by the founder of Science Slam, Dr. Julia Offe. The winner, as chosen by the audience, was Dr. Karsten Rapsch, who gave a presentation about in vitro diagnostics. The commemorative publication to mark the anniversary also contains fascinating insights about innovation, with 23 contributions by 34 authors from within VDI/VDE-IT.
After the official part of the celebrations, many guests took the opportunity to pose for a commemorative photo with a giant purple ‘40’, express their birthday wishes for the company in a creative graphic recording or go on a tour around the technology museum.