On Monday, March 8, almost 200 Design Thinking enthusiasts joined the SUGAR+ Winter Presentations 2021. This event is a major milestone in the current SUGAR program. At KIT, we have hosted the Winter Presentations for SUGAR projects located in central Europe for six years already. In non-Corona years, we used to celebrate this event in the impressive atriums of the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design and the Center for Arts & Media. But this year everything is different. Due to the Corona-pandemic, we transfered the event into the digital space. More specifically, we decided to conduct it on the event platform HOPIN.
It’s all about inspiration
After a little warm-up Prof. Dr. Gerhard Satzger from KIT and Prof. Dr. Falk Uebernickel from HPI welcomed the SUGAR design thinking community to this annual get-together. Next on stage, Dr. Daniela Gerd tom Markotten provided an inspiring keynote. She explained what insights she had gained as a SUGAR partner and how she used them when founding her start-up AIVITEX.
Subsequently, eleven project teams from nine universities presented their latest prototypes for solving real innovation challenges. These challenges were posed by ten renowned corporate partners from a wide range of industries. For instance, prjects from the automotive, consumer goods, financial services, IT, sanitary supplies, pharmaceuticals, and public sectors were presented.
A diverse mix of Design Thinking enthusiasts
Besides the students, the audience comprised about 80 corporate guests and 50 academics. They all came to followed the various talks and provided feedback to the prototypes developed by student teams. Moreover, in the breaks they engaged in networking sessions with their peers.
Kudos to the student teams for their professional pitches and the creative solutions they presented. Also, a big thank you to all our friends from the SUGAR Network , and – in partucular – to our co-hosts from the Hasso-Plattner Institute in Potsdam for making this event happen.
We are looking forward to the next Winter Presentations in 2022 – hopefully in an inspiring physical place again.