At the start of 2022, the Startup Incubator Berlin (SIB) opened its doors on January 27 to a virtual marketplace of new business ideas. More than 30 guests took a look behind the scenes of the young companies and answered their questions from a customer perspective. Gathering this perspective (UX for User Experience = user perception) is an essential part of the Lean Startup Method, with which the founding center of the Berlin School of Economics and Law supports young startups. The focus is on product development in rapid cycles, with low resource requirements and regular customer feedback, in order to quickly bring a new offering to market readiness.

At the online event in January, seven teams showcased their current stage of development: Cheery offers a platform that rewards sustainable consumer behavior, and the founding team of cleverlohn wants to simplify payroll processing for micro and small businesses. Sittery creates a marketplace for trustworthy childcare, Trueffles presented its new, intuitive internet research tool, and neXpen is currently expanding its range of intuitive learning tools.

Teams from outside the SIB also participated: Qequal demonstrated a platform connecting beauty and wellness providers with their queer, transsexual, and non-binary clientele. The portal MehrPflegeGeld is designed to help people easily determine their entitlement to a care budget without complicated bureaucracy.

UX testing at the Startup Incubator Berlin takes place regularly on the last Thursday of the month from 4:00 PM, information and registration: https://www.startup-incubator.berlin/events/

Interested teams from outside the SIB can register at: gruendungszentrum@hwr-berlin.de

On Tuesday, November 9, 2021, the virtual workshop on the topic of “Cyber Security in Israel” took place as the first joint event between ELNET e.V. Germany and Departments 1 and 5 of HWR Berlin.

On the occasion of Cyber Security Month — November — and the newly established collaboration with ELNET e.V. Germany, the Startup Incubator Berlin, Department 1 and Department 5 of the Berlin School of Economics and Law jointly organized a workshop on the highly relevant topic of “Cyber Security.”

Israel is considered one of the world’s leading countries when it comes to producing new startups and investments in the cyber security market. Gilad Zinger (YYM Ventures) and Shahar Alon (Checkmarx) are experts in this field and were invited as guest speakers to report live from Israel on their experiences and the latest developments in the area of cyber security.

During the 1.5-hour event, they provided exciting insights into their companies and answered questions from participants. Data is the gold of the digital age, as they say. The use, dissemination, and storage of sensitive digital data and information is constantly increasing. This also raises the demand for cyber security measures. States, companies, and individuals alike are looking for solutions to better protect themselves against hacker attacks and data breaches. Others, however, do not see themselves as targets of such attacks.

“Many people think that they could not be a victim of Cyber Security.”, says Gilad Zinger, Investment Director – Cyber Security SME at YYM Ventures and guest speaker at our workshop. He reports on his experiences with people who underestimate the risk and assume their personal data would be too uninteresting for hackers. But what happens when 100, 1,000, or even millions of people think this way?

“We are more digitized than any other generation and we won’t stop being digitized. That is why there will be no stop of stealing data.” (Gilad Zinger)

The “stealing of data” goes far beyond electronic information and money, Zinger notes, and plays a video showing a woman who, through clever questioning over the phone, gains access to the personal data of her alleged husband. She needs only a few minutes to gain access to a stranger’s bank account. “You don’t have to have a computer to steal data.” (Zinger).

In his presentation, Gilad Zinger goes on to discuss the reasons and individuals who may be behind a cyber attack, various techniques and processes, as well as solutions for protecting against attacks. Many of his remarks give pause for thought. When asked by a participant about protection through anti-virus programs, Zinger smiles and responds: “The virus is more sophisticated than anti-virus. And the anti-virus program also collects data…”

Shahar Alon expands and complements with insights into the Israeli startup Checkmarx in his presentation, and speaks about the legal as well as technical aspects of cyber security. Both illustrate how important the further development of the cyber security market is and how much potential it still holds.

At the close of the 90-minute event, the experts, Zinger and Alon, once again pointed to the significance of all of this for the future of our society. Gilad Zinger uses the example of the “Smart City” — as a concept of a city or municipality that faces the challenges of digitalization and new technologies, embraces and interconnects them, for more sustainable and integrated urban development.

The success of such concepts is built on people’s trust in the security of their data. If people are afraid of losing their privacy and do not believe their data is secure, such promising projects as the “Smart City” will ultimately fail, says Zinger.

Following the event, it can be noted that the cyber security market still offers many opportunities for new ideas and innovations, particularly here in Germany. Many open questions are still searching for suitable answers and solutions.

In total, nearly 70 participants listened to the exciting topics presented by the Israeli cyber security experts and asked numerous questions. The event was moderated by Marvin Göldner, Head of Startup Coaches, from the premises of the HWR’s founding center, the Startup Incubator Berlin. Here too, the newest cyber security startups from HWR could find a home in the future and develop their ideas. So what are you waiting for…?

To the Incubator’s startup programs for students and graduates