On 6 December 2017, some 160 guests from politics, ministries, business and science accepted the invitation of the AiF President, Yvonne Karmann-Proppert, to the Humboldt Carré in Berlin.
How start-ups and established medium-sized companies successfully cooperate was the topic of a panel discussion moderated by “Edutainerin” Dr. Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim. Dr. Christian Otten, founder of the start-up company Lava-X, Edwin Büchter, Managing Partner of Clean-Lasersysteme GmbH and member of the AiF advisory board, Iris Plöger, member of the executive board of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) and AiF president Karmann-Proppert sat on the panel.
Edwin Büchter has accompanied the founding of Lava-X since 2016: “Mr. Otten’s idea convinced me immediately,” says Büchter. And the cooperation worked well right from the start, perhaps because we both had IGF experience and internalized the idea of “thinking outside the box”. In addition I see more clearly by the coaching, where there is at present improvement potentials in my own enterprise.
The start-up company Lava-X deals with laser beam welding in a vacuum. The technology can be used in many areas, for example as joining technology for innovative cooking pots. “Without IGF experience with many contacts to medium-sized companies, I would probably not have had the idea of founding my own company,” said Christian Otten. “But even if you are very well trained, the entrepreneurial experience that a mentor and business angel like Mr Büchter can bring in is irreplaceable.