Start-up Companies — How German business culture needs to change

When it comes to taking economic advantage of innovative technologies, Germany is lagging behind in international comparisons. In spite of the fact that many promising technological concepts stem from the country well-known for its engineers, many inventors have been unable to come even remotely close to the success of e.g. the US-American corporations from “Silicon Valley”. This circumstance has already led to a handicap for the German IT industry.

Google, Microsoft, Apple, Intel and many more corporations currently dominate their respective business fields and if there shall ever be a comparable German corporation, the German industry needs to adopt the successful business practices of those firms.

Entrepreneurship research suggests that especially the process of financing is more difficult in Germany, as private “Business angels” and venture capital funds are not as common in the German financial culture as they are in the Anglosphere. Company founders also oftentimes do not have applicable knowledge of management, accounting and organizational strategies, which leads to ill-advised decisions.Last but not least, a phenomenon referred to as “German Angst” is seen as an obstacle. This concept implies that the common German attitude perceives failure as something that should be avoided at all costs. The possibility of failure though is an inherent part of the risks of founding a company.

This talk will focus on what potential business founders should know beforehand about financial structures, management processes and their own mind-set.

About the Presenter

Johannes Goldhan, second-year student, Business sciences

Johannes Goldhan, a student of business sciences currently in his fourth term, takes great interest in accounting, financing, and managerial processes.
He specializes in the field of “International Financial Reporting Standards” (IFRS) as well as in organizational learning processes. He believes that these subjects are more important than ever, as globalization pushes corporations of all fields to new ways of thinking.

Coaching: An effective way to promote and develop performance

Employment relationships nowadays have become rather unsteady as formerly stable professional structures alter with rapid innovations in knowledge, changing work methods and new technologies. Mere technical knowledge of any profession is no longer sufficient to master the fast occurring social changes accompanied by new complexities of issues.

Here, coaching serves to identify these issues on a personal and/or structural basis. Coaches assist in a very individual manner in promoting skills to handle working relationships and thus they ultimately also aid to reach corporate goals in a better, more effective as well as faster way. They have their clients work on their own solutions and thus serve as a catalyst. At the end of a professional coaching process the client will have also gained better self-reflection and self-awareness which aids to master future challenges of the working environment. Any good Coach should therefore have a profound background in psychology as well as an understanding of managerial concepts.

This talk will focus on possible scopes of coaching as well as its implications for teamwork and leadership. Next, I will talk about the effectiveness of coaching and how to transfer the newly learnt skills into daily business routine. In the end, the audience should leave with a thorough understanding of the possibilities of professional coaching. Should they ever need to choose a coach themselves, they will also be equipped with practical tools to discern a professional from a layman.

About the Presenter

Ulrike Röthig, qualified psychologist and second-year student, Business Sciences

Ulrike Röthig has studied Psychology and takes a great interest in communication as well as conflict management. She took further education to become a coach and was self-employed for a couple of years. Now, she is in her fourth term as a student of business science at TU Dresden. She believes that in order to understand and help management as well as employees it is also necessary to gain a thorough understanding of the complexities in business within this globalized world. She wants to work as a trainer for leadership and management with a special interest in small and medium-sized companies.

The fifth generation (5G) wireless communication makes the future more than smart!

What is the fifth generation (5G) wireless communication?

The demand for higher data rates in wireless communications due to extensive use of multimedia applications and video streaming is always on the rise. 5G is the fifth generation of wireless technology, which is completely wireless with almost no limitations, also can be called REAL wireless world. There are many features that 5G can offer: high resolution for crazy cell phone users, enhanced and available connectivity around the world. The 5G technology is providing up to 25 Mbps connectivity speed. The new 5G technology will make all delivery service obsolete in the future. 5G system will not be a single technology but rather a combination of integrated RATs [radio access technologies]. Right now, there are no 5G phones and devices to use the new technology, although manufacturers like Samsung, LG, and HTC are experimenting with new designs. While the specifics are unclear, the 5G concept is mind-boggling and complex. The 2G network focused on voice, 3G on data, and 4G on video; the new 5G network will be all about connections.

This talk will highlight the features of 5G technology, mark its challenges, will give an overview on recent research, as well as on the evolution from the first generation to the fifth generation.

About the Presenter

Mohamed Ahmed, PhD student, Communications Laboratory

Mohamed Ahmed is a DAAD scholarship holder as PhD student at TU Dresden, at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering under the RF and communications. In his research he focusses now on antennas and propagations as a continued topic of his master’s degree. The topics Mohamed is especially interested in — Antennas, Electromagnetics, Communications, and Electronics — play a critical role in modern technology and draw the smart future plan.

Cryogenics — The science of the super-cold!

Cryogenics is the study of concepts and technologies with the aim of producing and applying very low temperatures. We are referring here to a temperature range below 120K (−153°C), a range in which permanent gases such as hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and helium begin to liquefy.

Why do we need such low temperatures after all? After liquefaction, the mentioned permanent gases are called cryogenic liquids and mostly find their application in industrial and medical areas. Those are, for instance, in the technical gas industry, the transport, storage and separation of gases. Liquid hydrogen for example is used as rocket fuel. A further application of cryogenics is material treatment, since mechanical and electrical properties of many materials change extremely when cooled down. The recycling industry is making use of this effect as the recycling of a number of materials becomes much easier after their exposure to such low temperatures.

In magnet technology the material property of superconductivity plays an important role thus establishing another application field of cryogenics. Here the exposure of material to very low temperature leads to superconductivity. This phenomenon is utilized also for high-energy physics accelerators as used at CERN, but also for energy storage and, in the medical field, for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Further examples like cryosurgery and cryotherapy in the medical field, as well as storing, modification or destruction of cellular structures in biology point out other important applications of cryogenics. Not to forget the common procedure of food freezing in food factories.

Cryogenics has various applications in different fields and consequently invites, even demands, interdisciplinary work and scientific cooperation. This talk will provide a general overview about this field of study and discuss some advantages and disadvantages. The main focus will be on the engineering part like material properties, liquefaction of permanent gases and their areas of application.

Are there any dangers dealing with cryogenic fluids? How can potential hazards be avoided? These safety issues shall also be mentioned and will complete my presentation.

About the Presenter

Marc Fuchs, fifth-year student, Energy Engineering

Marc Fuchs is a student of mechanical engineering in his tenth semester at the TU Dresden. After specializing in energy engineering he decided to focus on heat and refrigeration engineering where especially refrigeration and cryogenic engineering aroused his primary interest. Not only the varied and enormous range of application which is already related with this part of energy engineering has awakened Marc’s passion, but also the constant desire for improvement and the uninvestigated or unexploited possibilities it still brings along, particularly in the field of cryo-engineering. The participation in an impressive European Course of Cryogenics in summer 2014 provided Marc with a lot of valuable and convincing insight and encouraged him to move on in this field of study.

The Future of Materials Science and Engineering

From the dawn of human existence materials have been fundamental to the development of civilization. Anthropologists define the historical epochs by the materials used by the different civilizations such as the Stone, Copper, Bronze and Iron ages. The different rates of progression towards more sophisticated materials between cultural groups correlated with different levels of innovation and the local availability of those materials, and led to varying standards of living.

Materials science and technology is a multidisciplinary approach to science that involves designing, choosing, and using three major classes of materials—metals, ceramics, and polymers. Materials science combines many areas of science (chemistry, physics, and engineering) to make better, more useful, and more economical and efficient “stuff”.

Selective laser melting (SLM) is one of the newly developed additive manufacturing (AM) processes by which a product is built by melting selected areas of powder layers under a protective atmosphere, using a computer controlled laser beam. In the process, a high intensity laser beam selectively scans a powder bed, melting the particles which solidify to form a solid layer. A new layer of powder is deposited on top of the previously formed solid layer and the process continues until the part is complete.

The presentation focuses on Selective Laser melting technology.

About the Presenter

Omar Oday Salman, PhD student, IFW Dresden

Omar Oday is an Iraqi Ministry-of-Higher-Education-and-Scientific-Research scholarship holder as PhD student at TU Dresden / Mechanical Engineering / Leibniz institute (IFW) under material science. In his PhD thesis he works on research in selective laser melting of high-temperature materials. He focuses on reinforceing 316 L stainless steel with oxide alloy.

The Misconception of Wood — Why the dated is more up-to-date than ever

While wood as a commodity has accompanied mankind for some time, it is seldom accounted for as being high-tech. Modern forestry dates back to the 18th century, when the principle of sustainability was first introduced to the industrial society to counter wood shortage. Nowadays, sustainability is oft-cited, though with little consequences. It is the uniqueness of a biological production that prevents its adoption to the conventional industry. Renewable base materials that are otherwise inaccessible are transformed into usable biomass.

Wood, albeit it has been utilized for thousands of years, now reinvents itself with new processing technologies in combination with other disciplines. The variety of the material makes it on the one side applicable to many technological questions, but also difficult to handle on the other side. For example, thirty-story wooden constructions are possible as of today. Yet a restrictive legislation and inexperience forestall the sight of such buildings. Raw timber is merely the starting point and it is up to interdisciplinary teams to exploit its versatility.

The management of forests is subject to change as well. Timber harvest was mechanized with the advent of harvester machines. Microcontrollers and real time–mensuration capabilities have automated the on-site processing. Nonetheless, wood production conflicts with other demands on forests, e.g. the preservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, or recreational functions.

This talk leads the audience from the merits of forestal production to the old and the new management of forests and concludes with a discussion about the next generation of forestry, forestry 4.0.

About the Presenter

Nils Knüppel, third-year student, Department of Forest Sciences

Nils Knüppel is a sixth-semester student of forest sciences and particularly interested in making forestry commercially more attractive. So, he focuses on logging operations, which greatly account for total production costs, and wood technologies, which great potentials for added value are inherent to. To complement the supply chain of wood, he also studies process engineering in his fourth semester as a sideline. Nils teaches in turns applied statistics and applied computer sciences at Dresden University of Technology, and is a member of the student representatives in Tharandt.