During the state visit, the delegation with Queen Margrethe II got an idea of the work performed by UnternehmerTUM and the Colab. Helmut Schönenberger, CEO of UnternehmerTUM, provided a more in-depth view of the startup center and of the collaboration with their Danish partners. Moreover, Managing Director of the Munich Urban Colab Claudia Frey shed light on the background and vision of the Colab. Clemens Baumgärtner, Head of the Department of Labor and Economic Development of the City of Munich, presented the city’s own perspective. During a tour of the building after the speeches, the delegation visited areas such as the high-tech workshop MakerSpace and met select startups, such as Angsa Robotics and Horyzn.
The ecosystem that UnternehmerTUM and the City of Munich bring together in the Munich Urban Colab maintains close ties with Denmark. For example, the Munich Urban Colab has been working closely with Bloxhub, the Nordic Hub for sustainable urbanization, for some time now. The aim of the partnership is to develop and test sustainable innovations in Munich, Copenhagen and other cities. Furthermore, the Technical University of Denmark also maintains close relations with the Technical University of Munich and their affiliated institute UnternehmerTUM within the framework of the pan-European collaboration of technical universities, the EuroTech Alliance.
German-Danish collaboration
“We are extremely honored to welcome the Danish delegation with Queen Margrethe II to the Munich Urban Colab. The visit sends a strong signal regarding our collaboration in the field of sustainable innovations that we’re promoting here at the Munich Urban Colab,”
said Claudia Frey, Managing Director of the Munich Urban Colab.
In addition to the Munich Urban Colab, the Queen visited numerous other institutions in Munich and Berlin and met with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as well as the Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder. Germany and Denmark are bound by a long and close partnership at the political, historic, economic and cultural level. The four-day visit from 10 to 13 November gave all participants a platform that made it possible to establish a dialog with a series of key actors at a federal level.
Denmark in Bavaria
In addition to its consulate general, Denmark is also represented in Munich by its Innovation Centre Denmark, one of Denmark’s seven innovation centers in the world. The innovation center supports the research and innovation cooperation of Danish researchers, companies and organizations with scientific and industrial players in Germany. It also gets Danish startups acquainted with the Munich ecosystem.