About us_

Waterkant Futures Thinking Lab_
About opencampus_
Press_

Waterkant Futures Thinking Lab_

We connect_
startups & companies,
people & projects,
today's ideas & tomorrow's futures
_since 2016.

The Waterkant Futures Thinking Lab realises a wide range of formats and has established itself as a central innovation and experimentation space in Schleswig-Holstein. In an environment of rapid ecological, technological and social transformation, the Lab provides a co-creation and networking space for stakeholders from business, science, administration and civil society and promotes innovative solutions for the regional and global challenges of our time through a variety of formats. In addition to established formats such as the Waterkant Festival, the Waterkant Future Exhibition and Coding.Waterkant, we are constantly developing new formats. These include reverse pitch events, community formats such as the Waterkant & Friends Dinner, the Futures Thinking course with the aim of promoting futures literacy education and the investment vernissage for start-ups and investors, the PhD track for academics interested in start-ups and transfer, masterclasses as thematic deep dives and the Futures Making course. In all of these formats, we bring together a variety of stakeholders to advance our goals of promoting co-creation, networking and collaboration as well as establishing sustainable futures literacy education in Schleswig-Holstein.

Another aim of the Waterkant Futures Thinking Lab is to retain young talent in the region and attract new talent. Our opportunity spaces, programmes and events motivate our participants of all ages and backgrounds to develop and reinvent themselves. We lower entry requirements, provide an open climate of support and incubate (start-up) ideas.

The Waterkant Futures Thinking Lab with all its formats is part of the non-profit association opencampus.sh and is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) from the State Programme Economy 2021-2027 (LPW 2021) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Transport, Labour, Technology and Tourism of the State of Schleswig-Holstein.

About opencampus.sh_

opencampus.sh is the umbrella brand of the non-profit association Campus Business Box e.V. opencampus.sh offers a wide range of further education opportunities for all curious people - regardless of age, educational background or nationality. Since 2009, different projects have gradually developed under the umbrella of opencampus.sh, all of which open up new educational paths with different focuses. These include the Edu-Program with 4200 registrations per year, the co-working space starterkitchen with over 30 early stage startups, the open high-tech workshop Fablab including Makercube, the social entrepreneurship program for over 162 schools Seed.schule, the first Machine Learning Degree in the north of Magnet and many more.

Around these complementary projects, we have been able to build an independent regional, national and international network of companies, non-profit organizations and startups with around 25,000 people since 2009. With the help of mentors, the participants in our formats use and create their own unconventional ways to implement their project ideas. The association is financed by institutional funding from the city of Kiel, project funds and EU funds.

Press_

You're a press representative and interested in our Waterkant Festival? Here you can find our press kit and pictures in our Flickr gallery.
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You're also welcome to contact us at press@waterkant.sh.