Magdeburg Historical and Other Facts
- Established by the first Holy Roman Emperor, Otto the Great, circa 1000AD
- Location of the first Gothic cathedral built in Germany
- Occupied by Napoleon Bonaparte
- Martin Luther preached here and launched the Protestant Reformation
- Home to Otto Von Guericke, inventor of the vacuum
- Most bombed city of World War II next to Dresden, Germany
- Known for the architecturally renowned Postmodern building style
- A former Soviet Cold War stronghold
- Major logistics and distribution center for bulk materials
- Evolving from heavy manufacturing engineering to hi-tech and R&D process engineering
- Located at the junctions of motorways A2 and A14 and on the banks of the Elbe River
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Catalyzing Competitive Advantage
The human resource piece of the Magdeburg strategy is well enough embedded to the point where other players like Dr. Graham Horton are also heavily involved. Horton also serves as the Dean of Computer Sciences at Otto-von-Guericke-University.
He's representative of the comprehensive range of technical disciplines historically represented at the university, that now also represent critical new-economy assets. Chief among them are the engineering competencies encompassing mechanical, electrical, information technology, process/system engineering and computer sciences. These are complemented by natural sciences, mathematics, economics and humanities.
Another advantage is the size of the school.
There are 19,000 students, with 6,000 of them studying applied sciences. More than 1,500 are from countries outside Germany, a factor that will influence the influx of more outside talent and investment. (The current Vice President of Vietnam is a graduate.)
Weiß estimates the student population represents about eight percent of the core city's population of about 200,000 people - another factor that bodes well for future talent retention.
So the university serves as another catalyst to the Magdeburg growth formula. Even though it's an old city, Weiß insists the city of science is known for newer sciences.
"The future looks much better," he feels. "Magdeburg is positioned to retain more university graduates and become more competitive" with the former West Germany. "We're well known outside of Magdeburg as a center for excellence in engineering," Weiß adds. In addition to the school, the Max Plank Institute is one reason for that growing level of recognition.
That's because the interaction of the university community with research institutes and ultimately private enterprise is leading directly to competitive advantages for those companies in the form of products and other innovations to market.
Dr. Weiß shares a story of how Dr. Aloys Wobben, founder and CEO of Enercon - Magdeburg's largest private sector employer with 3,000 workers – says it best about the formula that brought Europe's largest producer of windmills to the city.
"Where else will you find (engineering accuracy) down to the micron?"
In Magdeburg, the City of Science, of course!
— Richard Kadzis is Senior Contributing Editor of The LEADER magazine, a publication of CoreNet Global. For more information, please visit www.corenetglobal.org
The New Uber Sustainability
Sustainability is broadly practiced in Magdeburg as reflected through brownfield redevelopment at the Science Harbor, the world's only water bridge supporting clean-air barge traffic, and the extensive reuse of old materials like river drift wood. |
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