Flanders DC - Inspiring Creativity

From May 28 until 30 Flanders DC is visiting Baden-Württemberg, one of our DC partner regions. Flanders DC is participating in the Reverse Mission together with decision makers, clustermanagers, institutions and economic development agencies from Flanders and from the other DC regions (namely Catalunya, Regione Lombardia, Québec, Nord-Pas de Calais and Oklahoma).

Baden-Württemberg is worldwide known for names and brands like Zeppelin, Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, Bosch, etc. But the region is also a very competitive, creative and innovative region. During these 3 days Baden-Württemberg wants to give us an insight in how innovation policies are made in their region and how the region stimulates creativity and innovation, with a special focus on “fostering creativity and innovation, entrepreneurship and internationalisation as main success factors for top creative locations in a global economy.”
 

During this first day we already were overwhelmed by a spectacular amount of interesting presentations and information that we want to share with you. We received an introduction to:

• The business location Baden-Württemberg – a location for “Creative Industries”
• Innovation- and cluster policy – cluster activities in the field of creative industries
• The Steinbeis Technology Transfer System
• The Fraunhofer Gesellschaft
• Film Academy Baden-Württemberg and Film and Media Center Ludwigsburg

Our visit to the applied research centre at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering was definitively the highlight of today. At the Fraunhofer we visited two labs: Virtual Reality Lab and ServLab.

The ServLab is a unique service innovation lab where virtual reality technology is used in the domain of architecture to visualise future buildings. We were able to have a look and walk around in the new railway station of Stuttgart that will be constructed in two years. This unique combination of architecture and virtual reality allows decision makers to easily visualise the plans of an architect, see how a future building will look like and make an easy decision rather than having to decide on plans. Moreover subcontractors in the construction sector have a better view on how they have to work together in order to obtain a good end result. But the technology goes further. Climate, light and sounds can be integrated and tested in this ServLab. And of course the ServLab can also be used in other fields i.e. car construction.

The Virtual Reality Lab is a 6 wall virtual reality lab mainly used in the end phase of the design process. For instance, to visualise a new car design before starting with the first prototypes.