The Luckenwalde University Office in Brandenburg, which is supported by the Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau (TH Wildau) and the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (FH Potsdam), has made it into the 15 finalists of the digital innovation competition "Digital Places in the Land of Ideas", which is being organised jointly for the second time by Germany ¨C Land of Ideas and the Deutsche Glasfaser Group. The competition honours lighthouse projects that shape and advance digital life in rural areas in an innovative and creative way. The 15 finalists from all over Germany, including the Luckenwalde University Office from Brandenburg, were able to assert themselves against a strong field of around 170 applicants. Together with two other projects, the Luckenwalde University Office is now in the final in the Education category. The five winning projects in the categories Mobility, Community, Smart Community, Health and Education will be announced at the award ceremony in Berlin on 14 November 2023. A high-calibre jury from the worlds of business, science, politics and society will select the winners.

Prof. Dr. Dana Mietzner, Professor of General Business Administration with a focus on innovation and regional management at TH Wildau and Head of the Innovation and Regional Research Group: "We are delighted and proud that our joint project has made it to the final of the competition. For four years now, we have been working together with the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam to promote knowledge and technology transfer in rural areas, and digitalisation is both an essential prerequisite and an enabler. The success of the concept is demonstrated by the positive response from citizens, who gratefully accept our digital infrastructure in the makerspace, the wide range of workshops on offer and the opportunities for co-working, for example."

"The Luckenwalde University Centre is the antithesis of the 'ivory tower': with its inviting and creative atmosphere, it motivates a wide variety of people to simply drop in, gain an insight into academic work and contribute their ideas. It is a nucleus for participative, applied science by creating a space for developing solutions to problems from everyday social and economic life," says Prof. Dr. Antje Michel, Professor of Information Didactics and Knowledge Transfer at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

This year's competition is being organised in partnership with the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung, the Deutscher Landkreistag, the Gigabitb¨¹ro des Bundes, the Netzwerk junge B¨¹rgermeister*innen and Tagesspiegel Background. The patron of the competition is Daniela Kluckert, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Digital and Transport Affairs.

About the Luckenwalde university office

In the rural areas of Brandenburg, many companies and civil society players do not have direct access to universities. To counteract this problem, the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg (MWFK) supports so-called university presence centres in regional growth cores ¨C cities and city associations that receive special support to strengthen their economic potential.

The Luckenwalde presence centre is a cooperation between the TH Wildau, FH Potsdam and the city of Luckenwalde. It is one of seven university presence centres in the state of Brandenburg. Together with the Luckenwalde Regional Growth Centre, the two universities are committed to intensifying networking between science, society and the regional economy and to strengthening knowledge and technology transfer in the region. The presence centre creates event formats in which knowledge is imparted and exchange is encouraged. In addition, the Presence Centre team is available for advice and networking in the Brandenburg science landscape. The presence centre combines various focal points: a makerspace, a coworking space, a testbed to try out new technologies and a showroom with the opportunity to exhibit technical developments or prototypes from the universities.

About the competition

More than half of the people in Germany live in villages, small and medium-sized towns with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. Today more than ever, many people have a new desire to live in the countryside. This is because rural life has a decisive advantage over city life, which is sometimes highly urbanised: Freedom. Nevertheless, rural areas are facing challenges: Ageing, vacancies in town and village centres and a declining number of healthcare facilities as well as public and private care services. Clever minds have therefore already developed digital solutions for tomorrow to tackle these structural problems and improve the overall quality of work and life in the regions. The "Digital Landmarks in the Land of Ideas" competition showcases success stories of developments and concrete applications that serve as a source of inspiration and increase the positive perception of the topic. At the same time, it provides a stage for the creators and pioneers and gives them the recognition they deserve.

An overview of all the finalists and more information about the competition is available at www.digitale-orte.de

Further information

Information on the Luckenwalde University Office
Information on the seven university offices in the state of Brandenburg

Contact person for the Luckenwalde office:

Markus Lahr
Project coordinator at the TH Wildau 
Gewerbehof - Luckenwalde campus
Beelitzer Stra?e 24
14943 Luckenwalde
03375 508 514
markus.lahr@th-wildau.de

Joint press release of the TH Wildau and the FH Potsdam