November 12, 2008: Berlin

Six of us were invited by Evonik Industries to their Science-To-Business Awards ceremony in Berlin. We had the chance to broaden our network because Alexandra and her team also invited 20 other European students from 8 different countries Together we started the event with a river cruise on the Spree. While going past Germany's new capital buildings and historic sights we were enjoying nice food and drinks. Even after a failure of the boat's electricity the atmosphere was still electric.
The next day a workshop on communication and creativity was given by our CP coach Alexandra. We were joined by Prof. Drauz, who gave us a deeper insight into innovation management at Evonik. It was great to hear from his practical experiences about the issues discussed. Thanks to Alexandra we saw some well know slides from David Ward again and had to smile about icebergs, coins and the Swedish underground pineapples.
The final highlight was the awards ceremony on Wednesday, which was held inside the Axica forum next to the Brandenburg gate. We were amazed by the breathtaking architecture of Frank Gehry and the marvelous interior. The event was hosted by a professional moderator and accompanied by the swinging jazz music of Rebecca Bakken.
For the 100000€ prize itself, three researchers were nominated. The happy winner was Dr. Paul Dalby, who works in London on bio-catalysis for chiral amin-diols.
After he got his fat cheque we got our delicious dinner. Since we were scattered throughout the room we had a chance to get in touch with several high ranking Evonik managers and other top researchers sitting on our tables. For deserts and drinks we left the tables and strolled around to meet more people. We stayed even after the bus left to finish the evening in style and left only after the Evonik cocktails were gone.