TU & YOU Newsletter

Newsletter 08 / September 2015

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INHALT

Did you know …?

‘Extremophile’ Expedition to the Azores

Unipitch: Hamburg Universities Invite Startups to Millerntor

New Series of Events for Executi-ves: NIT Impact Sessions

News from the Stiftung Promoting Creativity and Student Initiative

Making Study Attractive: HASPA Donates €9,000 Toward the Cost of New Study Workplaces

“I have a question, Professor Her-statt: What’s so innovative about Frugal Innovations?”

Portrait of an alumna: Kristina Böe

QUICK LINKS

TUHH Website

Register Now!

TU & YOU on Facebook

Startup Dock

Northern Institute of Technology Management (NIT)

Graduate Academy

AFTER-WORK SAILING 2015

At Barca an der Alster, photo: TUHH / L. Kreft

FIRST MEETING OF TUHH AMBASSADORS WITH MICHELIN STAR CHEF CORNELIA POLETTO

The TUHH ambassadors are public figures from science, business, the arts, politics and society who have intensively accompanied and supported the TUHH’s successful progress in recent years and have a special connection with the TUHH. They are TUHH ambassadors in the best sense of the term and contribute in their networks toward generating even greater awareness of the TUHH’s activities and to promoting societal dialog. TUHH President Professor Garabed Antranikian discusses with the voluntary TUHH ambassadors current issues of social relevance in order to continue to keep the TUHH on the right course.

The first meeting of TUHH ambassadors was held in the TU & YOU Lounge on June 5. They prepa-red and cooked food together with Michelin-star-red chef Cornelia Poletto. In addition to getting to know each other the TUHH ambassadors discussed initial joint ideas. Meeting four times a year, the

current TUHH ambassadors are: Dr. Gottfried von Bismarck, Albert Darboven, Michael O. Grau, Dr. Rüdiger Grube, Prof. Dr. h.c. Thomas J.C. Matzen, Dr. Georg Mecke, Dr. Stefan Palzer, Prof. Dr. Richard David Precht, Krista Sager, Petra Vorsteher and Arne Weber.

Ship Ahoy! A sailing event was arranged for our alumni association members for the second time in cooperation with the Akademischer Segelclub der TUHH e.V. On July 21, more than 20 members met in glorious weather at “barca – An der Alster” to sail and for a chat. It was a roaring success, the

First meeting of TUHH ambassadors in the TU & YOU Lounge, photo: TUHH / P. John

sailors were delighted, the after-work atmosphere was relaxed and, in the twilight, downright roman-tic. There will be a repeat, that’s for sure; we are looking forward to it already! For those who don’t want to wait for next year, feel free to contact the sailing club directly at http://www.asc-tu.de/

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NEXT DATES

Until 26.11.2015

Daily, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Andrea Rausch “Gesichtet – Malerei”

Exhibition in the Main University Building (A)

Am Schwarzenberg-Campus 1

Admission free.

26.09.2015 / 8 p.m.

Concert with SwingING. and star trumpeter Bobby Shew

Audimax I, Building H

Am Schwarzenberg-Campus 5

Admission free, donations requested.

22.10.2015 / 5 p.m.

TU & YOU Young Professional Network

Get-together, lectures and plant visit

Further information at tuandyou@tuhh.de

Dow Deutschland Anlagengesell-schaft mbH, Stade works

30.10.2015 / 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Dialog between students and the maritime industry

LuK, Building A

Am Schwarzenberg-Campus 1

Admission free, please register at www.stg-online.de

DID YOU KNOW …?

… that TUHH alumni reckon the competences they learnt best during their study program were analytical skills and the development of new ideas and solutions?

… that nearly 80 percent of master’s graduates are in employment and 20 percent go on to study for a PhD?

‘EXTREMOPHILE’ EXPEDITION TO THE AZORES

to isolate new bacterial strains and make use of their especially resistant cell components and properties for application-oriented projects. In order to do so they are pursuing new strategies based on first accustoming the bacteria in their natural habitat to new nutrient sources and life in “captivity” in order then to introduce them to laboratory conditions with a greater prospect of success. Colleagues at the University of the Azores, Professor Nelson Simões and his team, energetically assisted the TUHH scientists.

Along with a large number of samples the TUHH scientists were able to bring back to Hamburg extensive video recordings of their work in extreme conditions. These videos will be included in Prof. Antranikian’s proposed Hamburg Open Online Uni-versity project and give everyone who is interested in the subject a clearer understanding of the research topic “From the Origin of Life to Industrial Application.”

Seething hot springs and concentrated research in the Azores, photo: TUHH

… that 67 percent of companies where TUHH alumni work are internationally active?

… that the largest number of TUHH alumni are employed by the Airbus Group?

in a international areain a national areain a regional areain a local Area

Seething hot springs with rising vapors and the smell of hydrogen sulfide are an ideal location for extremophiles, or bacteria that love extremes. Places like these are to be found in the Azores, a group of nine islands that are the result of volcanic activity in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The hydrothermal springs of the Azores are an ideal research area for the internationally renowned extremophile research scientist Professor Garabed Antranikian, who visited these volcanically active areas in June with some of his research staff. The TUHH research scientists aim

Sources: Survey of TUHH graduates in 2013 (next survey to be held in October 2015), LinkedIn

67%5%

12%

10%

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NEXT DATES

07.11.2015 / 5 p.m. to midnight

Alumni Meeting Point for the

Sixth Night of Knowledge at the TUHH

Joint tour and get-together in the TU & YOU Lounge

Campus

Please register under tuandyou@tuhh.de

18.11.2015 / 5.30 to 8 p.m.

Third Symposium of the Hamburg Medical Technology Research Center (fmthh)

Lecture theater K 0506, Building K

Denickestrasse 15

Further information at http://fmthh.de/

25.11.2015 / 8 p.m.

Concert of the Analog Frequency Technology Department (FBFAFT)

Rock, pop, funk, Latin, swing

Audimax I, Building H

Am Schwarzenberg-Campus 5

Admission free, donations requested.

03.12.2015 / 6 p.m.

Hamburg Alumni Chapter Event

After-work Glühwein at the Historic Christmas Market on Rathausplatz

Meeting at the Christmas tree

NEW SERIES OF EVENTS FOR EXECUTIVES: NIT IMPACT SESSIONS

The NIT Northern Institute of Technology Manage-ment is launching from September 2015 a new series of events, the NIT Impact Sessions. Under the heading “Success 4.0 – Is Your Company Fit for the Future?” experts with extensive practical experience share their outlook on tomorrow’s digitalized world.

Management and organizational processes are changing rapidly. Generation Y, digitalization, In-dustrie 4.0, and demographic change are exerting a fundamental influence on corporate cultures. They are revolutionizing the classical understanding of labor and, with it, of leadership. In the two-day NIT Impact Sessions executives will learn how to cope with these global challenges and how to manage their companies successfully.

In small groups and individual coaching sessions, attendees will work out how their company can reposition itself in the course of Industrie 4.0. They will benefit from the specialized knowledge, experience and viewpoints of other attendees from different industries as well as from those of the experts.

These are German-language events and can be booked individually. The price per NIT Impact Session is €1,150.00. For TUHH alumni: €1,025.00.

For further information and to register, visit www.nithh.de/impactsessions

UNIPITCH: HAMBURG UNIVERSITIES INVITE STARTUPS TO MILLERNTOR

UniPitch, to be held on October 12, is a joint start- up event organized by Hamburg universities and research institutions and is aimed at prospective startups in all fields and at business founders and startups from Hamburg. The focus of the day’s ac-tivities at the Millerntor Stadium is on communica-tion. Attendees will learn how to present their ideas and concepts in a focused and target group-speci-fic manner. Experts will coach them, live on stage, in interactive pitching sessions. Inspirational talks

on relevant startup issues will also be given in order to achieve the greatest possible learning effect. Prizes awarded for the best presentations, keynote speeches, and the Hamburg Startups Mixer in the evening will round off an exciting and inspirational day of networking that will bring together and connect Hamburg students and young research scientists and startups. Tickets, from €29, are avai-lable from www.uni-pitch.de

UniPitch in the ballroom of the main FC St. Pauli stand, photo: O. Ruhnke

The NIT Impact Sessions at a glance:

October 13 and 14, 2015, Ideapreneurship and Flat Hierarchic Organizational Structures

October 22 and 23, 2015, Führung 4.0: The Psycho-Logic of Industrie 4.0

October 29 and 30, 2015, Disruption, Emergence & Talent – Agenda Setting for the Future

November 10 and 11, 2015, Mastering the Challenges of Agile Development

November 24 and 25, 2015, IT Security – Awareness and Methods of Protection from Digital Threats

Sessions will be held from 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. at the NIT, Kasernenstrasse 12, TUHH Campus, Building F, 21073 Hamburg.

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“I feel very attracted to the TUHH,” says Wolf-gang Kluge, who is a willing supporter of the Stiftung zur Förderung der TUHH (Foundation for the Promotion of the TUHH). He names two main reasons for his commitment. For one, he was very much a technophile in his youth and wanted to become an engineer. He achieved this ambition, working in automotive development and car body construction at Porsche and Daimler. For another, he is firmly convinced that engineering, especially German mechanical engineering, is and will remain of the utmost importance for the economy. Our prosperity, he says, is largely based on technologi-cal progress combined with social responsibility.

The importance of engineering achievements could, however, be given wider public and media recognition. The TUHH, for example, has deve-loped significantly, promotes interdisciplinarity and demonstrates with concerts, lectures and art on the campus a wide-ranging openness to society. That was why he was happy to have made donations in order to support the TUHH’s endeavors to promote creativity and student initiative. Further points of reference have resulted from his present work as an artist. Following an exhibition entitled “WHAK – The Rainbowman – new inspirations” in the main university building he continues to encourage

creativity among students and university staff with his works of art on loan to the TUHH. Kluge looks forward with eager anticipation to what he can still go on to make of his life. “Maybe I will become an inventor,” he says, adding the need to “constantly broaden one’s horizons.”

NEWS FROM THE STIFTUNG PROMOTING CREATIVITY AND STUDENT INITIATIVE

MAKING STUDY ATTRACTIVE: HASPA DONATES €9,000 TOWARD THE COST OF NEW STUDY WORKPLACES

For students the library is a research and learning hub, yet library workplaces have grown scarce with rising student numbers at the TUHH. That is why TUHH President Garabed Antranikian is pleased that with HASPA’s generous ongoing support it has been possible to provide a variety of workpla-ces that enable students to work in a way that is suitable for different learning types. On the second reading room level three soundproofed niche workplaces designed for individual and group work have been provided along the rotunda. That is how interplay between concentration and participation takes place in social space.

The workplace niches on the first floor, set up back in 2012 with the aid of €16,500 in HASPA funding, are the most used workplaces in the library – for individual students and for groups of up to four. “For us, promoting education is a high priority and one that we are happy to put into practice.

I am delighted that the funding from the HASPA lottery savings scheme has been invested so well and so sustainably,” said Stefan Sagau, Regional Director of HASPA Harburg, on a visit to the library with colleagues.

From left to right: Ralf Drewes (HASPA), Inken Feldsien-Sud-haus (TUHH Bibliothek), Stefan Sagau (HASPA), Dr. Ralf Grote (TUHH), Marcel Sluppke (HASPA), Detlev Bieler (TUHH Biblio-thek). Foto: TUHH

Wolfgang Kluge, photo: privat

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Quality has its price. This seemingly incontrover-tible creed – one of the cornerstones of product development – is reflected in the fact that many products are growing more and more complex and expensive. Mobile phones and computers are con-sidered to be outdated after only a few months, while cars are given a facelift shortly after their market launch, only to be followed, very little later, by successor models. The importance of durability as a quality criterion seems to be on the decline in an increasing number of product categories. Coun-ter-reactions also exist, however. Some people deliberately go for products with a few functions that matter to them and consciously opt out of the consumer race. A further factor is that economic growth has been static for years in many European countries with the result that many people there can no longer afford elaborate and expensive pro-ducts. Economic growth no longer really happens in Germany; it takes place in countries such as China and India. The emerging middle class there may have an enormous amount of ground to make good in all manner of areas, but it can mostly not afford products from the developed world – or often does not even need them.

What use is a refrigerator in India if you live in the countryside where power cuts are still common-place. The effects described, both here and in the growth countries, are showing initial repercussions. Companies in many industries are having to realize that their products are often no longer fit for purpose because they are too complex, expen-sive, functionally over-engineered, or not durable enough. How do manufacturers set about dealing with these changes? Frugal innovation is the latest buzzword. Frugal innovations are, simply speaking, products and services that are, on the one hand, highly affordable and, on the other, of a quali-

ty that is suitable for their purpose. Let us call it affordable excellence. Frugal comes from the Latin frugi, meaning simple, economical, and useful. Frugal innovations are intuitively useful problem solutions for price-sensitive customers who are un-able or unwilling to spend money on functions they consider to be unnecessary. This category includes buyers in both the highly developed world and the emerging countries. A well-known example of a frugal innovation in Europe is the Dacia Logan, a small, SUV-style car manufactured by the Renault Goup. The Dacia costs significantly less than others because it gets by with over 35 percent fewer components than comparable models. Within years of its market launch the Dacia (Logan) has become the Renault Group’s most important revenue driver.

A comparison of the prices of frugal and compa-rable standard products in 13 different categories reveals, for example, price differences of between 58 and 97 percent. Such enormous differences cannot, as a rule, be resolved by a mere “slim-ming down” of existing solutions; they require a zero-based approach in which the desired product functionality is newly developed from zero, as it were. The use of consistent target costing plays a key role in this process. Frugal innovations are thus not cheap imitations of existing solutions but can also be genuine innovations in their own right. In the realization of frugal innovations a question that accompanies the cost problem is the quality that the cost permits in view of the technological soluti-on possibilities used. So it is essentially a matter of how a desired product or service functionality can be achieved in a technologically appropriate way, or which technological solution principle is good enough from the user’s viewpoint. In this connec-tion manufacturers can fall back on the tried and test toolkit of value analysis. Profit margins – often narrow in the case of frugal innovations – can then be offset by a high volume of business. That is why a high level of scalability is of crucial importance for frugal products. For manufacturers who want to innovate frugally, a central challenge is to make development teams aware of this need. Creativity, openness to solutions that seem at first glance to be unorthodox, and thinking in analogies can all help, but here as elsewhere, it won’t work without the support of top management.

“I HAVE A QUESTION, PROFESSOR HERSTATT: WHAT’S SO INNOVATIVE ABOUT FRUGAL INNOVATIONS?”

In this new series Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt, Director of the Institute of Technology and Inno-vation Management, is the first to describe his area of research

Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt, Foto: private

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IMPRINT

Publisher President of Hamburg University of Technology 21071 Hamburg

Contact TU & YOU – Vera Lindenlaub www.tuandyou.de TUandYOU@tuhh.de

Editorial Vera Lindenlaub

Layout TuTech Innovation GmbH

Photos GEA Group, O. Ruhnke, TUHH

FOLLOW US

Ms. Böe, why did you choose to study at the TUHH and do you now think it was a good deci-sion?

The range of courses on offer at the TUHH made a very sound impression. The TUHH’s proximity to where I lived and its outstanding reputation will also have contributed. Studying at the TUHH was highly challenging and comprehensive. That made a decisive mark on me and on my entire approach to the requirements of the job. You learn to tackle new ideas in a very structured way and to “dissect the elephant into small pieces.”

Can you remember your first impression of the TUHH?

In my days the TUHH was not as attractive as it is today. My first impression was not really inviting. Lectures were held at a large number of locations in Harburg (Kasernenstrasse, a bar in Eissendorfer Strasse, the Helmsmuseum, etc.). We were allowed to use the Tax Office canteen. That is why the time between lectures was spent walking around or looking for somewhere to park. All that was offset, however, by the great fellow-students.

What was your motivation to study that subject and to choose this career?

I chose a study program that both required and laid a broad scientific foundation. The numerous options available in industry for general process engineering graduates also convinced me.

How would you summarize your time at the TUHH?

It was a work-intensive time that nonetheless left me with sufficient free space because of the great working group I was with. The group with which I worked intensively back then continued to meet regularly after we graduated to visit Denmark, and

PORTRAIT OF AN ALUMNA: KRISTINA BÖE

to this day we still meet more or less regularly on many different occasions.

What is the greatest thing about your job?

I took on a new position in the GEA Group on June 1, 2015. I am currently setting up an entirely new area in which I have no existing structures on which to build. That is great fun but also a chal-lenge in view of the great responsibility that comes with it.

The GEA Group was my first employer after graduation and has since regularly confronted me with fresh challenges – challenges that have been demanding and have taken me forward at the same time. I was latterly for many years Technical Manager of GEA Brewery Systems GmbH, where the enormous sense of cohesion and team spirit was always a power motivation. Yes, I really can say that is a part of my family.

What do you use in your career that you studied at the TUHH?

Today I use my fund of basic knowledge to under-stand complex connections and thereby to help my colleagues to solve their technical problems. My current job mainly involves personnel manage-ment.

What does a typical day of work look like and what competences do you need for it?

My typical day’s work is very strongly oriented toward communication. As my colleagues are distributed around the world, regular exchange via modern means of communication is indispensable, and as my area of responsibility deals solely with resource management further education and per-sonnel development play a very important part.

You are also active in the TU & YOU network, what do you do for it and why?

We attach great importance to promoting young researchers. That is why we are so committed at the TUUH, awarding, for instance, an annual prize for the best Bachelor’s degree in biological process engineering written in the standard period of study. In addition, we and other leading companies in Hamburg sponsor the so-called Professors’ Grill, a network that has already generated a large number of trainees and led to the appointment of a number of TUHH graduates as employees. This cooperation is a win-win situation both for the students and for us as an employer.

Kristina Böe, photo: GEA Group

Name, First name: Böe, Kristina Nationality: German City, country: Hamburg, Germany Study program/Degree: General Process Enginee-ring / Dipl-Ing. Year of graduation: 1994

Employer & Position: GEA Brewery Systems GmbH, Senior Vice President Cross-Application Execution