- Second day of the digital conference sees awards for innovative companies and Edit Schlaffer, founder of the counter terrorism platform SAVE.
- Amazon CTO Werner Vogels discusses entrepreneurship with Munich's students.
- Music producer and Oscar winner Giorgio Moroder proves you're never too old for innovations.
Entitled "It's Only The Beginning", the DLD (Digital, Life, Design) innovation conference will continue to focus on the influence of digitalisation on society, health, the world of work, the financial industry, mobility, art and design until 20 January 2015. To kick off the second day of the conference, Burda Board Member Stefan Winners spoke with Oliver Samwer, founder of Zalando, about the recipe for success enjoyed by start-up incubator Rocket Internet, which has spawned 50 companies so far. "Germany now has a bit of Silicon Valley and a bit of Wall Street," said Samwer. "Strong expansion, an exit or an IPO are not unrealistic dreams."
Insights into the mobility of tomorrow were provided by Ian Robertson, Head of Sales and Marketing at BMW: "We find ourselves in a new digital era. The business model of the automotive manufacturer has not changed for 100 years. Now it is changing." In future, the focus will not be on engines and chassis, but on a vehicle's digital networking. Robertson predicts that the first driverless cars will appear on German roads in ten years at the latest: "Then the technology will be ready."
In the world of work, new technologies are also boosting efficiency: Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield presented his new project Slack, a messaging service that allows teams to work together and access all documents, links and tweets. However, despite all the technical possibilities, the relationship between companies and employees will also prove crucial for success. "A company without loyalty is a company without a future," emphasized LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman in conversation with Arianna Huffington.
At the DLD Campus lecture, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels spoke with 180 digital natives and innovators of tomorrow. "After twenty years, we still proceed as though it's our first day," he said, emphasising the necessity of constant innovation, "otherwise other companies would overtake us."
David Marcus (VP, Messaging Products at Facebook) talked about the future of messaging in the age of Snapchat and Tumblr. And with his provocative theses from his current book The Internet Is Not The Answer, Internet critic Andrew Keen lent the conference a critical voice.
Music legend Giorgio Moroder discovered the "sound of the future" back in the 1970s in the form of synthesizer disco music. The three-time Oscar winner appeared at DLD to speak about the beginnings of electronic music and the opportunities that new technologies offer today's young musicians: "Anyone making music with a computer has a good chance of releasing a song." In 2013, Daft Punk created a monument to the musical innovator with the track "Giorgio By Moroder".
The Aenne Burda Award for Creative Leadership was presented to Austrian social scientist Edit Schlaffer, who founded "Sisters Against Violent Extremism" - the world's first female counter terrorism platform - with the aim of strengthening families against extremism. For the third time, Focus news magazine presented the Focus Digital Star Award to honour technologies that may help to shape the markets of the future. The main award for "Digital Innovation of the Year" went to technology company Kreditech, while the "Digital Perspective" category was awarded to relayr. Daimler subsidiary moovel was named "Editor's Choice" by Focus.
On Tuesday, 20 January, EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger will talk about the digital framework in Europe, while Donald Schneider (H&M) will speak on digital impetus for fashion and Michael Mendenhall (Flextronics) will provide an insight into "The Intelligence of Things".
