This year's Krefeld symposium on "Innovations in Health Care: Entre- and Intrapreneurship as Drivers of Change" attracted around 70 students and interested professionals to the Faculty of Health Care at Hochschule Niederrhein (HSNR). The event offered participants valuable insights into the opportunities and challenges of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship in Health Care. Professor Dr Christian Timmreck hosted the symposium.
Renowned experts from business, science and academia presented practical ideas and discussed them with students on the Health Care Management degree programme and other participants. The aim of the event was to convey innovative perspectives on shaping Health Care through entrepreneurial thinking and action. In this context, the topics of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship were highlighted as key forces for change in the healthcare sector.
Speakers who shared their experiences included Stefanie Kutsch and Stefan Odrowski from the HNX start-up counselling team at HSNR, who showed how the university supports founders in their first steps. Dr Thomas Raueiser from NRW.Bank explained how innovations in Health Care can be financed. Prof Dr Philipp Cimiano from Semalytix showed an example of a successful start-up in the healthcare sector.
In the area of intrapreneurship (entrepreneurship within a company), Mike Angelkorte from hcb - Institute for Health Care Business spoke about the opportunities and challenges of this approach in hospitals. Stefanie Siebels and Sören Schiffers from Solventum explained how 3M's Health Care division became its own start-up. Roger Warich from Medtronic gave an overview of how Health Care companies invest in new projects through equity investments.
The event culminated in two panel discussions in which the speakers discussed the challenges and opportunities of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship in Health Care with the audience. Participants were able to ask questions and actively contribute to the discussion.
In addition to the lectures, there was also a job fair, which offered students the opportunity to make direct contact with companies in the healthcare industry. This sponsored the exchange of information about internships, project studies, theses and potential career starts. It was particularly valuable that some of the speakers and company representatives were HSNR graduates themselves, giving the students practical insights into their own professional careers and the diverse prospects of studies in the field of healthcare management.
"I found both my themed project study programme with subsequent Bachelor's thesis and my dream employer," reported one student. "The symposium highlighted the importance of dialogue between the various players in Health Care and the central role that innovative spirit and entrepreneurial thinking play in shaping the future of the sector. It shows the importance of dialogue between science, business and academia and how valuable the close link between theory and practice can be for students," say Lea Leeser and Sabrina Elangipilly, who formed the symposium's organisational team and are research assistants at the Faculty of Health Care.
