For fifty years now there has been an active twin city partnership between Karlsruhe and Nottingham – thus, the academic contacts between these two cities are close. In the course of Nottingham Trent University’s (NTU) European Creative and SMART Cities Challenge more than fifty interdisciplinary students came to INIT and in two groups caught up on the company as well as current trends in public transport. They had a closer look at our software und hardware solutions.
As part of the European Creative and SMART Cities Challenge, NTU´s students explored answers to the following overarching research question: “How can cities and universities work together to support creativity and innovation?” given the central roles of creativity and innovation in Nottingham’s regeneration plan, Building a Better Nottingham (March 2018) and Future City Strategy, Smart Nottingham (2018).
We have planned this programme in collaboration with the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule Karlsruhe – Technik und Wirtschaft, HsKA). INIT has been supporting HsKA’s faculty of transport management intensely since the beginning. Through its origins as a university spin-off INIT has a long-term commitment to the academic world anyway that we are willing to enhance.The students enjoyed their stay at the Kaeppelestrasse and Stephen Williams, Director of NTU Global, was pleased to get such extensive insight into the company: “The objective of our European Creative and SMART Cities Challenge is for students of Nottingham Trent University to shape the future of our city by learning from best practice examples from Europe. As INIT is shaping the future of mobility in both Nottingham and our twin city of Karlsruhe, our site provided the perfect introduction to the future of public transportation.”
INIT-Chief Operating Officer Matthias Kühn added that “it is always a pleasure to welcome motivated young people at our headquarters. We hope they cherished the hours they spent at INIT and got inspired to help shaping the future of Mobility in Nottingham.” Being the headquarters of INIT Ltd. Nottingham is an academic place that has a special significance for us. Who knows, maybe we will see some of today’s visitors in the future as student trainee or employee at INIT?