MBA: Santosh's Trip To Berlin
Santosh Kumar is an MBA student from Andhra Pradesh in Southern India, who recently attended the MBA study tour of Berlin.
30th May 2022 – From Belfast to Berlin via Amsterdam
We are a group of 14 students travelling to Berlin with two of our university professors - David Paulson and Julie McCandless.
Even though our flight was delayed, we managed to complete immigration smoothly and on time. It was a short flight of an hour and a half to Amsterdam, which was so pleasant to watch from the sky. After a few hours layover in Amsterdam, we reached Berlin Brandenburg Airport at 10pm.
We arrived at the Crowne Plaza hotel by 11pm, and the long day of travel and tiredness attracted us to our super comfy beds.
31st May
We had a delicious German breakfast at the hotel before gathering at Theodor Fontane to be briefed about the day's schedule.
Firstly we had an opportunity to meet Joachim Von Prittwiz, a Senior Executive International Business at KPMG, who gave us some insights about Berlin and Germany, and wrapped up the session with a coffee break.
Then we had a chance to learn about businesses and opportunities provided by the city and country in the words of Rouven Sperling, Dual Career Manager at Berlin Partner. He walked us through the startup ecosystem and Berlin as a fast-growing hub and how Berlin Partner can help to find resources, network and grow businesses, particularly in Berlin.
After a lunch break our bus took us to the next stop for the day, to meet Sara Borella, Director of Western and Central Europe for DIHK. DIHK is the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry. We were also joined by Jupp Zenzen, Head of Economics, Growth, and Company Surveys, and together they explained their presence representing the Chambers in Germany.
After an interesting and insightful afternoon at DIHK we boarded our bus after a group picture to visit Braugier Craft, situated in a friendly neighborhood with an cozy interior space.
Brian Trauth, founder and CEO of Braugier Craft, is an energetic entrepreneur with roots travelling all the way back to the USA. He shared his career journey, some interesting facts about the city and the rise of the company. He talked us through the different stages of the brewing process and each of us had the privilege to taste and learn about six craft beers (though some of us just smelled instead of tasted).
An insightful and packed day was rounded off nicely with fresh beers, and we were back at our hotel by 6:30pm.
1st June
After another early German breakfast, the group reached our first company of the day, EUREF. A centre for innovation and communication in the energy sector, EUREF is one of a kind in Europe. We had the opportunity to meet multiple startups working at the EUREF campus, situated next to each other and sharing the common goals of climate protection. It was interesting to visit an energy workshop by GASAG solutions, Inno2Grid and mobility solutions company, Ubitricity.
Joshua Meinke, Sales Manager at Ubitricity showed us around their office and explained the company's innovative electric cars charging points spread across London and Berlin.
Next we were on to visit co-working space Betahaus, where new entrepreneurs and small businesses with memberships have offices spread across five floors. Later we were joined by some inspirational entrepreneurs - Andrew Wallace, MD of Smileback; Florian Stark, Industrial Analytics AI Business Development; and Zakaria Jaiathe, Co-Founder and CEO at Xibit and Waanda. They shared their amazing ideas and experiences of opening a company from scratch in the welcoming city of Berlin.
Later on we had the opportunity to do some sight-seeing. We went on a walking tour around Checkpoint Charlie, Branderberg gate, Berlin’s parliament Building the Reichstag, Memorial of the Murdered Jews, and finally the Berlin Wall, before retiring back to our hotel rooms.
2nd June
On the Thursday morning, we visited Benoo first, a sustainable food chain company. We met Benedicte Fillion Ennis, the Co-Founder of Benoo, who explained to us the mission of the company, and all about food security, sustainable food systems and local agriculture. Then we were divided into two groups, and got to take part in a cooking workshop, cooking a sustainable lunch with the assistance of experienced Benoo chefs.
We also had chance to explore the surroundings of Benoo where we happened to see the oldest working cinema setups. It was really interesting to see studios which were used for German dramas and for Netflix streaming movies.
Following a great lunch, we spent the afternoon with the incredibly knowledgable art historian Anna Ratcliffe. She took us to different museums around the area of Mitte, explaining to us in detail the history of every artist, painting, and wall mural in the area.
After waving goodbye to Anna, we had some time to relax before our farewell dinner at Berlin TV Tower. Wonderful views and some great photographs taken, we enjoyed platefuls of food and lovely glasses of wine.
3rd June
Spoon and butter knife were crossed for one last German breakfast at the Crowne Plaza. Everyone had their own paths to explore, goodies to buy for their families, and plans to make the most out of our last day in this beautiful city.
Final goodbyes said, we headed back on our journey to Belfast. We all had a great week - meeting incredibly inspiring business connections, learning all about the business world in Berlin. We left with many cherished memories, photographs to look back on, and new tasks to start our dissertations.
Thank you to the School for giving me the opportunity to go on this wonderful MBA study tour to Berlin.
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