Student Workshops at the Kickoff Weekend – Class of Fall 2019
By Melanie Seiler and Jennifer Herner
Published on 22 Aug 2019
Each semester the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM) has made it its mission to bring together a new class of highly motivated students enrolled at Bavarian universities. As tradition holds, the CDTM starts this new era with a kickoff weekend, including student workshops and info sessions on consulting, entrepreneurship and team building. This took place in a town called Mühldorf am Inn, which is located 80km away from Munich. Just within three days, 26 students developed a bond which sets the base for any future venture. It’s the foundation of a friendship that will last a lifetime and gets built upon as time moves on. This weekend marks the beginning of the Class of Fall 2019.
As one of 26 students of the new class, I was curious and exciting to finally get to know my fellow classmates. Since a key element of the CDTM experience is that we all come from different study and cultural backgrounds, I was thrilled that a full day was devoted to team building activities.
We kicked off the day with our first activity: standing in a circle upon beer crates, where we were asked to sort ourselves according to our age, first name, or birth month. The mission: None of us should touch the ground in the process! Not an easy task considering the small space on a beer crate. In addition, the difficulty was increased, as some of us were no longer allowed to see, hear or speak. Admittingly, it was a wobbly affair! Yet, we successfully managed that nobody fell off its beer crate. As soon as it got shaky for the two Centerlings that had to change spots within the sorting procedure, the adjacent classmates were immediately available and helped to stabilize the situation. Realizing that we could rely on each other from the very first second was a great finding for us as new class.
Straight after our first exercise, we set off for the scavenger hunt. On the go at every stop, a new activity was waiting for us. Thereby, the teams were always remixed to ensure that we all got in touch with one another.
Opening a beer bottle with only a thread and a bottle opener without being allowed to directly touch the latter, and then pour the beer into a glass with the same equipment was certainly a highlight of the day for us! Impossible? Well, that is what we all thought at first!
The action day will surely remain in our memory as a day full of fun and joy, paving the way for our strong bonding as Class of Fall 2019. But this was just one of the student workshops.
– Melanie Seiler (Fall 2019)
The second day featured a BCG consulting workshop, where the new class was able to get a taste of everyday consulting work.
To set the scene, the workshops started with an extensive Q&A session. The Centerlings received the opportunity to learn more about the variety and richness of the BCG experience by asking all kinds of questions ranging from “How does a typical day of a consultant look like?” to “What are the differences between BCG and its ventures?” and “To what extent is it possible to switch between the various business units?”.
The case study at hand dealt with the development of a growth strategy for a satellite production company to conquer the global internet connectivity market. In teams of 5-6 students the class developed a solution model accompanied by an experienced consultant. Since each team was provided with several add-on information about the company and the specific market, the challenge particularly was to filter the material only for relevant information to solve the case within the faced time constraint. Thereby, the students learnt to follow a hypotheses-driven approach. The Centerlings were instructed to think upfront what information is needed to derive the required growth strategy in the end. This approach enabled the teams to scan the provided input material only for relevant information and not get lost in detail.
The workshops for students came to an end with a short pitch of each team of their solution model. The students generated interesting results and showcased once again the power of interdisciplinary teamwork.
The CDTM study program fosters problem-solving and creative thinking skills and has therefore been the starting point for multiple successful startup stories within the Munich startup scene. The entrepreneurial spirit lies deep in the heart of any Centerling, as we strive to put our ideas to life and to solve the pain points of our users. The Entrepreneurship Day holds a speaker series to inspire and encourage the new class to pursue their own startup ideas. We invited our CDTM Alumni Mehmet Yilmaz and Joshua Cornelius, who both co-founded Freeletics and currently work on their new venture "The life company". They talked about their core values as entrepreneurs and how they bootstrapped and sold a multi-million business.
The speaker series at the Entrepreneurship Day also welcomed Tomislav Tomov and Awais Shafique, both co-founder of Presize.ai, who recently graduated from the CDTM in September. As an early-stage-startup, they accomplished many milestones so far and are determined to help consumers find the perfect clothing size while shopping online.
The new class also got introduced to another CDTM-affiliated startup: Medikura. It was co-founded by Dr. Philipp Nägelein and has been present in the Munich startup scene for two years. Philipp has not only been a Centerling himself but also spend some years in the CDTM Management Team, before becoming an entrepreneur. He introduced us to the importance of having a platform to report drug-induced side effects that help pharmacy’s and doctors identify remedies and fasten up processes.
The kickoff weekend was full of new insights, challenges and unforgettable memories. We wish the Class of Fall 2019 a great start at the CDTM and are curious to see what the future holds for each of our 26 new Centerlings.