The event was hosted by Jochen Klenner and Vanessa Odermatt (both CDU), members of the state parliament for Mönchengladbach.
Minister Ina Brandes: "Artificial intelligence and cyber security are the major topics of the future that affect everyone's lives. With the Textile Factory 7.0 and the Cyber Security Campus, The Hochschule Niederrhein is training students in these so important fields close to the needs of the labor market and turning young people into specialists we so urgently need. In this way, the university makes an important contribution to the business location and prosperity in our country."
"The Hochschule Niederrhein is committed to its partnership of responsibility with the companies and communities in its region during structural change. Social and technological innovations are our offer to the region. What's more, 2000 graduates every year are our contribution to securing skilled workers in the Lower Rhine region," says University President Dr. Thomas Grünewald.
"Innovative, smart textiles and sustainable production are important topics for the future, as is the topic of 'security and protection against hacker attacks on the Internet.' We are proud that The Hochschule Niederrhein recognized this at an early stage and successfully set out on its path. The close links with the local economy and the high level of commitment of the university and SMEs to local educational initiatives is exemplary and model-like, and this also impressed Minister Ina Brandes very much," said Jochen Klenner and Vanessa Odermatt.
The first part of the visit focused on textiles and in particular the current planning status for the Textile Factory 7.0 (T7). The T7 is a project within the framework of structural change in the Rhenish lignite mining area and is being jointly driven by the Research Institute for Textiles and Clothing of the Hochschule Niederrhein, the Institute for Textile Technology at RWTH Aachen University, the Association of the Northwest German Textile and Clothing Industry and the Association of the Rhenish Textile and Clothing Industry, with the Textile Academy NRW and the WFMG for the city of Mönchengladbach.
In T7, both digitalization with the topics of artificial intelligence, robotization or cyber security and the ecologization of production towards zero emissions are to be addressed. The large-scale project is thus intended to develop competitive industrial production of the future using the textile and fashion industry as an example. The overriding goals are the creation of new jobs across all qualification levels on a sustainable basis and the further development of technology and concepts - sustainable production methods and use of resources, circular economy or consistent digitization in the direction of AI - for the textile industry.
The minister got a first impression of what sustainable textile production of the future could look like when she visited the innovative start-up 140Fahrenheit. The company is revolutionizing the conventional way of finishing denim thanks to state-of-the-art laser, washing and water recycling technology at its Mönchengladbach site. With C&A, one of the world's largest denim brands, 140Fahrenheit has succeeded in entering into a long-term cooperation right from the start and in developing this project together successfully and sustainably. The company of the founder Felix Holtgrave takes over the "finishing" of the product.
The jeans are washed in large machines, dried and then placed under the beam of a laser that performs the washing without water or chemicals, giving them a more or less aged or vintage effect. The electricity used in the plant comes 70% from wind energy and 30% from photovoltaic. The water, some of which is recycled, is heated by the heat generated by the giant tumble dryers. About ten liters of water are currently needed per pair of jeans (with the goal of reducing this to five liters in the future), compared to nearly 69 to 90 liters in conventional production.
Just a few meters away resides the Cyber Campus NRW (CCNRW), a joint project of the Hochschule Niederrhein and the Bonn Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Ministry of Culture and Science had made more than six million euros available for the pilot phase until the end of 2023. Now Minister Ina Brandes took a look at the progress that has been made since the project began.
The Hochschule Niederrhein had launched the Degree programme Cyber Security Management in the winter semester 2020/21. The consecutive Master's degree programme Cyber Security Management followed a short time later. Starting in the winter semester 2023/24, the Bachelor's degree programme in Digital Forensics will be launched.
For many years, the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences has offered the specialization "Information Security" in the Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes in Computer Science, from which the independent Bachelor's degree programme "Cyber Security & Privacy" emerged in the winter semester 2021/22. The Master's degree programme of the same name will start in the winter semester 2023/24.
The enrollment figures for the CCNRW's Degree programmes show that the demand for IT security experts is high. "The registration has even exceeded our expectations. This is a great success for the Cyber Campus NRW," says HSNR professor Dr. René Treibert, a member of the CCNRW founding team.
