Grapevine and grey power
Tenants in Coworking Space IM.PULS benefit from each other
“Sitting close together promotes contact,” claims Tobias Kirschnick, Head of the Innovation and Setup Centre and responsible for the coworking space IM.PULS inaugurated in November in Adlershof. This meets with José Toro’s appoval. His company INIT has already “sized up” two others “over the desk” and discovered a number of interesting starting points. It’s not always about joint business deals. “Sometimes,” said Kirschnick, “you simply need a good tax consultant. And the neighbour happens to know one.”
It does not look all that tight on the 550 square metres of the coworking space. Where just two years ago people came to eat their canteen food and where today startups put the finishing touches to their ideas. Bright, friendly rooms, modern furnishings and workstations, space for discussions, opportunities for withdrawal, and the kitchen where everybody wanting to can come together once a month and exchange ideas and experience. Here is where people meet for new projects or business ideas who would never have seen each other in separate, shutoff offices. Coworking is cooperation on a flexible and voluntary basis, with the possibility of profiting from one another.Whether in large office rooms, over whole floors, in lofts, or in former factory halls, collaboration, sustainability, community spirit, and accessibility play a decisive role in coworking spaces.
“Rivalry”, said Kirschnick, “that’s not an issue.” Rather, the “cohabitants” are seen to be complementary. A 70+ year old professor, who has set up quite a few companies in his lifetime, sits next to pupils and first year students who, after their “Young Researchers” projects, now intend to 3D print pet orthoses that are compostable, individually adjustable, and cause less irritation.
Rivalry? No, José Toro doesn’t see it that way either, even though the experts in solar powered water desalination from Boreal Light GmbH are sitting only a few tables away.INIT has developed and sells eight-litre multifunctional water bottles. What’s so special about these bottles is that they can be converted in two minutes for use in a desalination and irrigation system. Why? The groundwater in many arid areas takes on salt near the coasts, and many small farms had to be abandoned there as a result. The INIT bottle is filled with salt- and seawater and buried in the soil at an angle when it can provide up to three plants with up to four and a half litres of desalinated water for nearly six weeks. “Boreal Lights is taking a different course, and they even supported us in our experimental phases,” said Toro.
Also the GFaI, a promoter of applied computer sciences, is only a stone’s throw away and sometimes takes a look in. At present it is in contact with the orthosis printers of Think 3DDD. “They’re talking now,” said Kirschnick, who is always close to his tenants. “Ideas, research, coaching, financing options – here you can sound everything together.”
By Rico Bigelmann for Adlershof Special
www.adlershof.de/en/coworking/