11:45 a.m. – 12:05 p.m.

How Innovation Succeeds in CO Partnerships—What Makes Cross-Industry Collaboration Effective

Innovation does not arise automatically where different industries, perspectives, and areas of expertise come together. It arises when diversity is consciously cultivated. Drawing on initial insights from the CO.VISION funding program run by MFG Baden-Württemberg, this presentation highlights the factors that make cross-innovative collaboration sustainable: from a shared challenge, through readiness for cooperation and co-creation, to bridging competencies and expertise in the creative industries as part of the value chain.

12:05 p.m. – 12:20 p.m.

What Can Design Do? Design as an Interdisciplinary Field

Design is more than just creating things: As an interdisciplinary field, it bridges the gap between people, technologies, and systems. This presentation demonstrates how design connects different perspectives, makes complex relationships understandable, and enables new solutions.

12:20 p.m. – 12:50 p.m.

Cross-Innovation: Formats and Methods, Interfaces

Cross Innovation Day at OM7 – Insights and Lessons Learned

What happens when companies put their most pressing questions in the hands of creative professionals—and two sides that could hardly be more different come together? Cross Innovation Day at OM7 is a new format designed to structure this very moment and make it productive. In this pitch, we’ll share our real-world experiences: What does it take for interdisciplinary collaboration between the business sector and the creative industries to truly be effective?

We’ll show how the Cross Innovation Day is structured, what works—and what doesn’t—when very different stakeholders collaborate. And we’ll explore the conditions under which cross-innovation formats generate real added value.

Stepping Out of the Bubble: The Art of Organizing Productive Coincidences—The Mechanics Behind Successful Cross-Innovation Journeys

Stepping Out of Your Own Bubble: Curated encounters bring together people who might otherwise never have met, creating fertile ground for new ideas and collaborations.

Social Innovation Hackathon

Here, we see in a very practical way how the creative industries can drive innovation: At the Social Innovation Hackathon, creative professionals work together with social startups to further develop their innovative ideas.

12:50 p.m. – 1:50 p.m.

Lunch Break

1:50 p.m. – 2:20 p.m.

Next-Level Collaboration: How Creative Tech Is Transforming Creative Production

Creatives and technology—a field of tension that has always oscillated between fascination and skepticism. Today, creative tech tools are sometimes invisible helpers, sometimes disruptive game-changers. But how is creative tech transforming artistic production today? From time savings to democratization to copyright issues: The possibilities are enormous, the hurdles are real. What does this mean for collaboration? And what is lost in the process—or do we actually gain something? Using examples from Wavelab—the innovation lab and startup center at the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts—we’ll show how creative tech not only optimizes processes but also creates new possibilities.

2:20 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.

AI x Design = Skills for the Future: Regional Networks as Innovation Boosters

2:45 p.m. – 3:05 p.m.

Playful Progress: The Added Value of Gamification

Why do games keep us hooked for hours, while other apps and applications are often closed after just a few seconds? In this talk, we’ll explore this question together to crack the code of engaging experiences.

3:05 p.m. – 3:35 p.m.

Creative Tech in Practice

Spaces Instead of Frames: What Becomes Possible When XR Becomes a Creative Tool?

Extended Reality breaks free from the rectangular image format. Instead of just watching stories, we step right into them. Silke Schmidt demonstrates how augmented, mixed, and virtual reality, along with immersive video, are creating new, walk-through experiential spaces.
Using concrete real-world examples, she highlights the potential of this new dimensionality.

Creative Coding

Code doesn’t have to stay in the background. Christoph Ignaz Kirmaier and Thomas Geissl show what happens when programming becomes part of the creative process

3:35 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

Wrap-up

3:45 p.m. – 4:05 p.m.

Short break

11:45 a.m. – 12:05 p.m.

Before Innovation: How and Where Ideas Come into the World

12:05 p.m. – 12:20 p.m.

What Happened to After-Work Beers? How to Reach People and Build a Community Today.

In an age of event overload and information fatigue, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to truly reach people and build lasting connections. A community forms where meaningful encounters happen time and again. This talk brings together insights from over 15 years of community building and highlights the role that the right people, partnerships, special places, and genuine encounters play in the process.

12:20 p.m. – 12:50 p.m.

Spaces as Fields of Experimentation

From Space to Community

Why Innovation Needs Spaces for Experimentation

Tumblinger Creative Hub: From Vacant Space to Micro-Ecosystem
The Tumblinger Creative Hub demonstrates how vacant office spaces can be transformed into new creative micro-ecosystems through curation, community-building, and co-creation.

12:50 p.m. – 1:50 p.m.

Lunch Break

1:50 p.m. – 2:20 p.m.

Possible Practice—A Creative Hub Between an Automotive City and a Budget Freeze

Can a space for the creative industries emerge in a city known for its auto industry—especially when funds are extremely tight? In Ingolstadt, the answer is ELFI. The path to getting there inevitably took two steps. First, in the absence of a “grand solution,” a vacant dental lab was turned into a temporary creative hub to test acceptance and viability. Armed with these insights, once the path was finally clear, the actual space was established in the building designated for that purpose. In between lay tough negotiations, a budget freeze, and the lingering question of whether the whole project would fail. Marcel Aigner doesn’t present a finished “best practice,” but rather a “possible practice”—that is, what becomes possible when you test with temporary solutions, learn from setbacks, and keep going despite tight finances.

2:20 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.

From a Town to an Ecosystem – Introducing the “Future Places” Network

Individual creative places in rural areas can achieve a great deal—but it is only when they form a network that they realize their full potential. The “Zukunftsorte” Network knows this from its own experience: dynamic individual projects have given rise to a Germany-wide community. In this talk, Philipp shares his insights on how sustainable rural ecosystems develop from individual creative initiatives.

2:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.

Shaping Ecosystems Together

Building Innovation Ecosystems

3:15 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

Seeking an ecosystem, finding the future.

When creative spaces, local governments, and an engaged urban community come together, new uses, encounters, and perspectives for places emerge. The panel will synthesize the insights from the track and discuss how this collaboration revitalizes vacant spaces, strengthens neighborhoods, and fosters long-term, effective creative ecosystems from many small innovations.

3:45 p.m. – 4:05 p.m.

Short break