Phablabs 4.0

Steinbeis 2i GmbH was founded in 2016 as a 100% spin-off of Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum (SEZ) and has offices located in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. Steinbeis 2i is committed to working in the areas of innovation and internationalisation, building on the 25-years of experience of Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum.

Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum of the Steinbeis Innovation gGmbH belongs to the Steinbeis Foundation for Economic Promotion. The Foundation runs a network of approximately 1,000 so-called Technology Transfer Centres with the overarching aim to bridge the gap between science and application, turning R&D results into an actual economic advantage and making a whole spectrum of the latest technology and management insights available to large companies, SMEs, and individual entrepreneurs alike. Close links between the transfer centres and research organisations guarantee the connection between R&D and industry. Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum (SEZ) was founded in March 1990.

Overtaking from SEZ, Steinbeis 2i GmbH is now a member of the regional European Enterprise Network (EEN) consortia. The core activities of Steinbeis 2i GmbH are to manage and support international research projects, to assist organisations in European projects at any stage, to give assistance in the exploitation of research results, to promote trans-national technology transfer, and to stimulate and support the innovation process in industrial companies. Steinbeis 2i GmbH has vast experience in dissemination activities, organizing workshops, conferences and brokerage events for technology transfer. Steinbeis 2i GmbH and its parent company SEZ have been involved in more than 100 European projects in the past years, among them several road-mapping and technology transfer projects in a variety of emerging disciplines. Steinbeis 2i GmbH / SEZ also coordinate several EU projects both Coordination & Support Actions and RTD projects. The two affiliated companies are backed by a team of highly trained, multidiscipline and multicultural staff specialized in different research topics.

Steinbeis 2i GmbH will be involved in the development of workshops and the Challenger project and in the roll-out and promotion of project activities. Besides this, it will help FabLab Karlsruhe (KA) in regard of dissemination and marketing of project results (such as the open source printer to be developed within WP2).

Steinbeis 2i GmbH and SEZ have built up a strong track record in EU photonics projects, such as PhotonicRoadSME, Omni-NET, RespiceSME or the photonics outreach project Photonics4All as a coordinator and WP leader. They also have significant experience in conducting photonics outreach events that reach a wide audience from across the community. The team has initiated and conducted several successful activities such as ‘photonics children universities’ (attended by more than 260 pupils per year), attractive photonics exhibition booth during major events such as the ICT 2015 conference in Lisbon or the Photonics21 Annual Forum in 2016 and is highly experienced in social media to promote photonics. Especially thanks to the latter, Steinbeis 2i GmbH and SEZ can resort to a widespread network of contacts & followers which is easy to activate. Thanks to the involvement in the various projects, Steinbeis 2i GmbH and SEZ are well connected with diverse major stakeholders in the field of photonics such as clusters for instance (Photonics Austria, Photonics Sweden, OptecNet Deutschland…) or major networks (Photonics21). Within the project Photonics4All, Steinbeis 2i GmbH and SEZ contributed to the open access photonics tools such as a children promotion video, photonics quizzes and games, a photonics OmniLight Laboratory, photonics bookmarks, several brochures (Open Innovation Methodology in Photonics, Study Photonics, Create your Business in Photonics…) and a photonics app. In total Photonics4All could increase awareness and recognition of photonics by more than 140,000 young people, about 10,000 entrepreneurs and other photonics professionals and approximately 200,000 persons from the general public. Additionally, staff of Steinbeis 2i GmbH/SEZ is active member of Working Group 7 “Research, Innovation & Education” of the Photonics21 Technology Platform. Last but not least, Steinbeis 2i GmbH and SEZ are member of various STEM relevant regional platforms: PhotonicsBW, Mikrosystemtechnik Baden-Württemberg e. V., the cluster for smart solutions, Umwelttechnik-BW and e-mobil BW GmbH.