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A legitimate question: There are currently eleven companies worldwide worth one trillion US dollars or more, and not a single one is from Europe. Why not? And why is there no disruptive innovation in Europe?

In Berlin, scientists and successful entrepreneurs are now addressing this question. The European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) is even establishing a new chair for this purpose. It is called "Team Global Chair for Disruptive Innovation". On Monday, it was inaugurated and presented at ESMT, one of the world's leading business universities.

Wake-up call from Lukasz Gadowski

“It's not about making things a little better, it's about taking things to a whole new level! “A wake-up call from Lukasz Gadowski, a successful Internet entrepreneur and investor whose company Team Global is funding the chair at ESMT so that Germany and Europe can be infected with disruptive innovations.

Lukasz Gadowski is a German-Polish venture capitalist. Born in Poland, moved to Germany with his family after the imposition of martial law and was already active in business during his studies. Since then, he has founded one company after another at a breathtaking pace.

Horse-drawn carriages and search engines

At ESMT, whose campus is located in the former State Council building of the GDR next to the Berlin Palace (Humboldt Forum), he presented the new chair with bold words. “An innovation is disruptive when it not only makes something existing a little better, but takes it to a whole new level,” said the founder of Team Global. “Examples include the transition from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles or, today, from search engines to artificial intelligence. But the introduction of compulsory education and the establishment of bureaucracy were also disruptive back then.” The chair would research and teach in this area and thus inspire and empower students, entrepreneurs, politicians and society. “What takes civilization to the next level and how do we contribute to it?”

Investors and academics

In his welcoming address, Prof. Jörg Rocholl, President of ESMT, emphasized that the endowed chair should bring investors and academics together and help turn scientific ideas into solutions that have an impact far beyond the campus. Europe should not only invent, it must also scale. Europe should not only invent, it must also scale. When a German company like BioNTech is so successful, it is not because it is from Germany, “but despite it.” Rocholl also mentioned that not a week goes by without a US scientist calling him who wants to leave Trump America.

The new endowed chair — an interface between technology, innovation and entrepreneurship — will be taken over by Prof. Henry Sauermann, supported by Prof. David Robinson from Duke University (Durham, North Carolina). Henry Sauermann focuses on new models of knowledge generation that are intended to produce groundbreaking innovations of scientific and social value.

Europe's “great gift” to the USA

In his contribution, David Robinson recalled the “great gift” that the Germans had given to the Americans in that Jewish scholars had had to flee to the USA. “The American successes of the 60s and 70s were the result of the European inventions of the 1920s. ”

Other speakers included former Finance Minister Jörg Kukies and economist Prof. Ann-Kristin Achleitner.

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