From Copenhagen to Kirchroa
Having drawn comparisons with foreign cities (Paris, Helsinki, Las Vegas) in our recent blogs, today we are going to do that one last time; the final inspirational trip undertaken by innoSpace (for the time being) was to Copenhagen! Well, actually, our destination was Lyngby, but that doesn't sound so cool. Still, this somewhat forsaken suburb of Copenhagen is home to Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, or DTU. Our main interest, however, was DTU Skylab, a.k.a. Denmark's own innovation Space. Of all the initiatives we have visited, this one bore the closest resemblance by far to our own innoSpace. Though we did spot a couple of striking differences...
At first sight DTU Skylab, whose name leads you to believe you'll be entering some kind of ultrahip UFO tower, was a little disappointing. It looked more like a large grey shipping container dotted with a few randomly placed windows and a tatty old banner once ordered from Denmark's cheapest printer. Communication tools simply aren't something they have paid any great attention to, and the official presentation is no exception; a handful of slides each containing a straightforward bullet point list in Comic Sans. On the other hand, their approach shows that building a well-known and successful brand in no way requires a slick house style. And without a doubt, well-known and successful are words that describe DTU Skylab.
Happily, the interior in no way matches the grey exterior. Even though it was the vacation period at DTU, it felt like stepping into a vibrant environment where something was really happening. The Skylab is a very open, flexibly designed building, where all the facilities for prototyping are to hand, but where there is also sufficient space to hold meetings or lock yourself away. With everything being enclosed in glass, the space remains very open. Most eye-catching of all is the transparent yellow meeting cube suspended in the middle of the space. Here in this floating box, we spoke at length with DTU Skylab's founder.
This conversation revealed that Skylab went through a very similar process to the one experienced by innoSpace. Likewise, they also started out in a relatively small building with a relatively small team, gradually managing to attract more people over time. They have now been in their current premises for some three years; their 1,500 m2 building is almost identical in size to the Matrix building we will move into next year.
Strong focus on education
Also striking is the strong focus on education. In the early days, especially, it was vital that courses were organized with them in mind, both for keeping the building lively and for boosting their familiarity among students and lecturers. In addition, these courses provided the perfect vehicle for introducing students to the facilities, teams and startups that a building like this can accommodate.
And that is exactly what we plan to do in Eindhoven. In the coming quartile, no fewer than four interdisciplinary courses will be starting in Gaslab. These will include the innoSpace BEPs and the Innovation Space project course, a number of cases for which have been provided by our teams. Clearly, this is a fantastic interaction.
Time for action
Back home after our very useful visit to our Danish sibling, it feels like that's enough foreign travel for now. Instead, we are going to spend the next two days holding a retreat session with the entire innoSpace team; we will translate all we have learned from these trips into action points for the coming six months. However, we do have one small confession to make: this session is being held in the exotic town of Kerkrade (Kirchroa in the local dialect), but we promise that for the time being this really, truly is our last foreign trip. Enough travel, it's time for action.
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