Funding for the Heilbronn-Franken region
Successful project application - funding for the Heilbronn-Franken region. Regional digitalization center to be established at the Künzelsau university campus
The joint institutional project outline from Heilbronn-Franconia was successful as part of the call for funding issued by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Housing for the establishment of so-called regional digitalization centers (digital hubs). The award was presented to the Heilbronn-Franconia region's project outline at today's award ceremony at the state-wide digitalization summit in Stuttgart. The next step is to turn the project outline into a full application by the end of April 2018. Implementation of the measure is scheduled to begin in September 2018.
"We are looking forward to being one of the selected projects. I deliberately say we, as it is a joint initiative of all relevant stakeholders in the Heilbronn-Franken region. This is a positive signal both externally to the funding body and internally with regard to the unity and cohesion of the Heilbronn-Franconia region," said WHF Managing Director Dr. Andreas Schumm during his brief presentation of the project outline in Stuttgart.
The consortium includes the Heilbronn-Franken Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the Heilbronn-Franken Chamber of Crafts, Innovationsregion Hohenlohe e.V., Heilbronn University, bwcon GmbH, the Würth Group, connect.IT Heilbronn-Franken e.V. and Wirtschaftsregion Heilbronn-Franken GmbH as consortium leader. Of the project outlines submitted, ten consortia were asked to flesh out their ideas over the next few weeks and lay the foundations for successful implementation. The project outline from the Heilbronn-Franken region envisages that the regional digital hub will be set up in the immediate vicinity of Reinhold Würth University, the campus of Heilbronn University in Künzelsau. In addition, satellite locations are to be set up at the other university locations in the Heilbronn-Franken region, i.e. in Schwäbisch Hall, Bad Mergentheim and Heilbronn, in line with demand. The aim of the Digital Hub is to provide holistic support to the region's predominantly SME-based economy in the process of digital transformation and to proactively shape the major changes in the world of business and work. To this end, cross-industry networking is to be organized and moderated in order to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration. This will promote the development of new value creation networks as well as the necessary technology transfer. The Digital Hub is to become a regional hub for digitalization and bring all relevant players together spatially in order to promote the exchange of experience, knowledge transfer and collaboration. In this way, a regional "eco-system" is to be created in which the joint development of new business models, platform-based offerings and digital projects are supported. The establishment of the Digital Hub is financially supported by the regional economy. The legal basis for the operation of the Digital Hub is now being defined together with bwcon GmbH as a strategic partner. The establishment of an independent operating company under the name hfcon GmbH is being considered. It is currently assumed that the Digital Hub will be able to commence operations from September 2018.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION In July 2017, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Housing launched a call for proposals for the establishment of regional digitalization centers as part of the Economy 4.0 initiative. The digital hubs are intended to address the challenges associated with digitalization.
