What has got me moving?

by Brockhaus AG 2002

Today I start this blog in order to capture what is going to come over the next roughly 60 days as a lifetime challenge is running. While being currently unpaid, yet not unemployed (working at the oddest times, using the Web, and global connections to accelerate innovation in a city that often is perceived as a "beauty of art" alone out in the world).

Almost 10 years back in time, while the river Elbe flooded large parts of Dresden (see on left), I happened to become "Head of Operations" for organizing the help, and support out of the crisis. Back then a PDA, namely a Palm m500 played a major role. "Technology in the pocket" and always "at hand" has become my second nature.

© Foto: BMW AG, Fotograf: Martin Klindtworth

Then I moved to BMW AG to help them to establish the vehicle distribution in the new plant in Leipzig (on right conveyor belts in central building), and a new tracking & tracing system across their production, and distribution sites. I stayed there for five years, to find myself becoming an entrepreneur to help companies to understand, perceive, and act upon the currently undergoing accelerated change due to growing information technology in all processes that used to be quite stable for decades. Coming back from a visit to Finland, which is well known for its exceptional education system I entered the Google competition "10^100 Project" with a quickly written proposal called TeamLea(r)ningExperience (concept handed to the futureSAX business plan competition edition 2008/2009 earlier that year for the first time due to the notion "You have an idea? Bring it out quickly. Accelerate on getting feedback, learn and iterate from there).

In March 2009 I learned about TranscendentMan from Rainer Wasserfuhr one of the most advanced futurists in, and around Dresden. After a visit to Yadegar Asisi's "Dresden 1756", where the futureSAX prize ceremony took place that year, we envisioned a technology accelerator, where art, science, and technology could be jointly put together in order to accelerate innovations across boundaries in Dresden. He showed me the trailer of the documentary about Ray Kurzweil's life, and he visions about "The Singularity is Near". His question, "How many faces do you recognize in the trailer?" ... and so the LockSchuppen concept emerged.

Only having a vision, and a concept is by far not enough. It needs "hard facts" or experiences, besides action. In the summer of 2009, I spent three weeks in the Boston area, visited MIT Sloan School of Management, the MIT Campus, several so-called coworking spaces like Betahouse (closed by 2010), and CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) which sparked my desire for more.

So it was only a matter of time to get to know more about Singularity University and its activities, first in the Silicon Valley, over time clearly spreading across the globe as their first alumni of the 10-week Graduate Studies Program were building up a global network.

Stay tuned as I will from now on cover what is happening in real time (more or less) around the challenge to make the visit to NASA Ames Research Center a reality (if all odds play out right, and I will be given a free space in the years to come).

Two years later, I had applied earlier to #GSP14 where I did not get a seat, together with Angela Incampo and the founder of Eventifier we decided to cover in real-time the event from Singularity University. Read here our interview we gave "A Mission to Bring World Changing Ideas from Singularity University to the World".