The German Danube Energy+ Pilot was planned for the timeframe 17.-20.03.2020 and should have taken place nearby the InnoEnergy office - in the TechnologyPark Karlsruhe. Due to the given circumstances and the fact, that step by step the public life in Germany came to a standstill, the InnoEnergy team had to decide whether to cancel, postpone or to change from physical to virtual implementation on Friday, 13.03.2020 - less than 2 working days before the pilot should have started. In agreement with the mentors and the cooperation partner AXEL - the Energy Accelerator, the InnoEnergy team decided to keep the date and implement a virtual 4-days workshop on the topics Business Models, Pitching and Sales as well as Ideation.
The mentors adapted their contents and approach within the given time frame in an excellent way, so that all Young Innovators who participated were content with the pilot.

The workshops were led by the following 4 mentors:

1.       Christos Klamouris, AXEL - Energy Accelerator (introduction and moderation)

2.       Markus Böhrer - Böhrer Unternehmensberatung (business models & ideation)

3.       Markus Lau - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (business models & ideation)

4.       Andreas Ott - Pitch Training expert (pitching and sales)

The workshops took place as planned from 9am to 5pm (or even 6pm) and had up to 16 participants, following the training contents and presenting them via Microsoft Teams or Zoom which worked - except some minor technical issues - very well. The workshop was held in English as some participants had foreign background and felt more comfortable in following the contents in English instead of in German.

One team decided not to attend the Danube Energy+ Tool Pilot after the first day anymore due to the Corona-crisis: They had to focus first on their running activities in order to minimize the risks for these instead of further elaborating their new business idea. The mentors Markus Lau and Markus Böhrer took this circumstance to give some statements to the current economic situation caused by COVID-19; they motivated the Young Innovators to take the crisis as a chance to enter the market while for  established companies and traditional business models the Corona-crisis is a very challenging time with many losses.

The feedback round on day 4 was very positive: the participants confirmed the usefulness and importance of such workshops, the only negative aspect of the chosen online approach was the lack of a possibility to have informal talks and interaction between the participants, e.g. during the breaks. As the mentors decided not to use video cameras during the workshops in order to minimize potential connectivity problems, the workshop felt less personal then it would have been with a presence approach.