Berlin Digital » Berlin

Berlin – Nährboden für Neugründungen

Alexander Kölpin — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 12:09:13 +0000

The European hat mir die Gelegenheit gegeben, ein paar Gedanken zu Berlin als Hauptstadt der digitalen Wirtschaft aufzuschreiben. Berlin hat im Bereich der digitalen Wirtschaft einen enormen Aufschwung während der letzten zwei bis drei Jahre erlebt und genießt derzeit viel internationale Sympathie. Wenn alles gut geht, hat Berlin in diesem Bereich eine hervorragende Zukunft. Hier kann man im European mehr lesen.

Berlin at the Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2011

Alexander Kölpin — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 19:57:07 +0000

Berlin was represented at the World Mobile Congress 2011 with a community booth organised by Berlin Partner and different company booths at the exhibition floor.

The WMC Barcelona in February

The question is where will it be after 2012? Afaik there are 4 finalists, Barcelona, Milano, Paris and Munich. From the travelling perspective I vote for Munich of course, however, the blues skies and moderate temperatures of the mediteranean area are in favor of Milano and Barcelona. Anyway, the organizers did a great job and the whole week exceeded my expectations, I found many companies who want to expand to Berlin.

Berlin startup soundcloud was to be found at the google android booth

I met 2 soundclouders, helped WIRED to some pictures of the newest tablets…however, on the 3 days I hardly made it through all halls once. I hope to have more time next year. It will be worth it.

ICIN 2010 conference in Berlin

Alexander Kölpin — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:38:48 +0000

On the 11th of October 2010 this year’s ICIN conference in Berlin started. Senator Wolf opened the evening reception at the Deutsche Telekom Hauptstadtrepräsentanz with his speech.

Berlin at the Cebit 2010

Alexander Kölpin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:15:29 +0000

More than 180 exhibitors from the capital region Berlin-Brandenburg exhibited at the Cebit 2010. Some of them met at the Berlin booth in hall 2. Though part of the media were discussing the necessity of this ICT exhibition, the general mood seemed good, it was well worth the trip. The Cebit being the world’s largest ICT exhibition, many times larger than the CES, offers opportunities for everybody. Although the organizers try to include the “web” through its webciety booths, the focus is still on business hard- and software and that seems a good position to me, considering the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and the IFA, the world’s largest consumer electronics fair in Berlin and numerous web 2.0 events everywhere.

SocialMediaWeek Berlin 2010

Alexander Kölpin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:17:13 +0000

[Am sitting in front row seat and trying out the iPhone's wordpress app for liveblogging:]
Full house at the Socialmediaweek’s Congress in Berlin. I love that they have chosen the Berlin-typical location Festsaal Kreuzberg – crowded and people were queuing up outside. This panel was moderated by Markus Angermeier ( @kosmar ). Alexander Korth ( @alexkorth ) (Make Customers Friends), Jodok Batlogg ( @jodok ) (Studi VZ) und Falk Lüke ( @flueke ) (Verbraucherzentrale) were discussing “Privat in Social – Platform- vs. Userresponsibility”. Am impressd by what the organizers have managed to get together in short time – an interesting programm and a lot of events in this week. The twitter hashtag is #smwberlin.

Webmontag in Berlin

Alexander Kölpin — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:34:34 +0000

Für Leute, die einen Einstieg in die Berliner Web und Free Software Szene bekommen wollen und dabei nette Leute und ein kühles Bier haben wollen ist der Webmontag bei new.thinking zu empfehlen. Der new.thinking store liegt in Berlin Mitte in Gehweite von der Oranienburger Straße und dem Hackeschen Markt. Die Getränkepreise sind völlig okay, so dass das vielleicht Wichtigste an Abendveranstaltungen, das Quatschen mit einem Bier in der Hand mit neuen oder alten Freunden erschwinglich ist. Die Gründer von new.thinking und damit auch Gastgeber des Events sind Andreas Gebhard und Markus Beckedahl.

Natürlich gibt es Vorträge, dafür kann man sich auf einem Wiki anmelden und man hat die Chance, seine Idee, Fragen oder Erfolge einem interessierten Publikum zu präsentieren.

Es war eine schöne Mischung aus innovativen Unternehmen wie z.B. barcoo, erfrischenden Ideen – ja, auch ich kann mir vorstellen u.U. für ein sehr gutes Berlin Blog 3€/Monat zu zahlen – und Networking Angeboten in und mit Asien durch einen sympathischen Berliner (Mario Behling).

Berlin at the Web 2.0 Summit 2008

Alexander Kölpin — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:08:12 +0000

One of the most forward thinking events I have ever visited was the web 2.0 summit 2008 organized by O’Reilly Media. They are usually organized at the end of each year in November in San Francisco. It is an invitation only event (you can ask for one here) which has a steep price but in my opinion is worth every cent. The organizers limit the number of multipliers and service companies and so the majority of the participants is from media, web, soft- and hardware companies. It was a more or less international event, the majority of people came from the US, understandably to a large extent from the Silicon Valley. However, I met Australians, many Europeans including half a dozen fellow countrymen and -women from Germany, and Asians.
A tip for those who don’t have thousands of $$$ left to spend for a ticket: like at any good conference there are always opportunities to network outside of the actual meeting rooms, many people spent the main hours of each day in the Lobby of the “Palace Hotel” and talked to the participants free of charge.
Going to the summit that week is worthwile as other organizations organize smaller events at that time as well, making use of the web summit week and thus making it easier to decide to travel because there is not only the 3 to 4 day summit but other events to learn and network. I used the time to meet companies at meetings I had scheduled in order to help them with their decision to expand to Europe/Germany/Berlin. I was pleasently surprised that even in the economic situation at the beginning of November 2008 I had discussions with companies looking at Europe and thus having a definite interest in Berlin, so that I could return home and follow up on the leads.
I was lucky enough to have been at the summt twice, 2007 and 2008. I plan on returning whenever possible. At both summits there was a line-up of excellent speakers and at both summits I was able to experience first hand decisions/information (for example: Yahoo CEO Yang), which largely influenced the web 2.0 and social media sphere.