At the event, the Hasso Plattner Institute with its School of Design Thinking was also honoured for the third consecutive time as a “selected landmark” by the “Germany – Land of Ideas” campaign. This initiative emphasises Germany’s strengths as a place of innovation and pays tribute to places that reflect the country’s future viability, cutting-edge performance and innovative potential.

Jonas Baur, Head of Development at Grundy UFA and Ernst Feiler, Head of Technology, spent the past 12 weeks researching the future of industrial series production with students at Europe’s first official school of innovation. The “Smartcards” prototype for the first time integrates the series writers’ writing process into the digital production process. Where paper file cards were used in the past, the teams can now share their ideas much more conveniently using the digitally mapped plot strands. An intuitive user interface with touch-screens helps the author team develop the plotline and allows them to concentrate on their actual task: coming up with a good story.

“For a company like Grundy UFA, which has been producing series for 16 years now, it’s fascinating to get fresh perspectives from the outside,” explains Ernst Feiler. “The project’s interdisciplinary approach made this cooperation additionally interesting. Besides, Grundy UFA is very serious about promoting next-generation talent. Therefore, the cooperation with the HPI School of Design Thinking is a success on two fronts: as well as drawing up innovative concepts, Grundy UFA can give young people an opportunity to further develop their potential.”

The students from a wide range of disciplines – including communication sciences, German language and literature, and business – created prototypes based on innovative suggestions and ultimately developed an interactive touchscreen that creates more room for creative leeway by digitising communications processes.

Grundy UFA, Germany