Berlin: bringing together blockchain ecosystems

31 January 2020 - Published by Evite van Winkoop

On the 29th of January the event ‘Blockchain = Collaboration’ was organised in Berlin. The event was about collaboration, and particularly the collaboration between the German and the Dutch blockchain ecosystems. Adri Wischman, who is involved with Blockchainlab Drenthe, attended on behalf of the BLING partnership.

The title of the event sounded familliar for someone participating in a project with 13 participants spread out over 7 countries but this time it was not about "verifiers" and "issuers" but collaboration between German blockchain- and Dutch Blockchain-ecosystems.

It was a busy day with in total 3 events:

Public use-cases for Blockchain at the Factory in Berlin
Blockchain ecosystem Exchange sessions at the Factory in Berlin
Collaboration reception at the Dutch Embassy in Berlin

All flawlessly organised by BerChain, a technology agnostic organisation in Berlin which connects all kind of organisations in Berlin working in the Blockchain-sphere (lead by Silvan Jongerius, a Dutchmen living in Berlin).

In the morning there was a paneldiscussion with German and Dutch parties about use-cases and best practises.

In the afternoon we were treated to a grand-tour of The Factory (a VERY impressive statup-ecosystem where you can find everything and everyone you would wish for as a startup or innovative company: from single-person startups to Mckinsey's digital experience-center, Google Zukunftsfabrik and Porsche Digital -several good restaurants and even an adultsize ball-pit) afterwards we were introduced to the German ecosystem (which is mainly situated in Berlin) complete with a excerpt from the new German laws and regulations. The Dutch ecosystem was presented by Rudolf van Ee and he brought with him Maven11 Capital and Dusk (a Blockchain investment company and a Blockchain-Project).

Afterwards a part of the audience was put on the bus to the Dutch Embassy for a special evening-event with talks and a lot of networking (220 persons in total in the Embassy).

We were welcomed by Bart Sattler (innovation Attaché Dutch Embassy in Berlin) and had the pleasure to listen to several speakers who are members of the German parliament (Thomas Jarzombek, Mario Brandenburg, Thomas Heilmann) who all were very passionate about digital technology in general and blockchain in particular.

There was a large group of Dutch Blockchain-entrepreneurs who had lively discussions with their German counterparts (cross-border-colleagues).

Adri Wischmann, Province of Drenthe/ BlockchainLab Drenthe