On the Triple Helix, Rapid Innovation, Textiles and Water

These were some of the topics discussed during the welcoming of the new cohorts of students in the international M.Sc degree programs in Engineering and Management on 6 October 2017 in Aachen.

After a formal welcome by Professor Ernst Schmachtenberg, Rector of RWTH Aachen, and Dr. Helmut Dinger, Director of the RWTH International Academy, the more than 100 students from 18 nationalities were treated to a series of short but impressive presentations capturing the cutting edge of modern innovative business management and entrepreneurship.

Professor Naudé, dean of MSM and professor in entrepreneurship and economic development, shared with the new students the impressive range of radical innovations that helped establish the German economy and many of its giant global corporations in the 19th century, pointing to the important partnership of universities, government and business (the triple helix) in fostering the institutions necessary for productive and innovative entrepreneurship.

Professor Frank Piller, Director of TIM (Technology and Innovation Management) Research Group at RWTH Aachen emphasized the importance of management skills for engineers who desire to create and grow companies. He outlined how successful innovation requires in terdiscipli nary skills and management of uncertainty and explained how mass customization technologies are requiring of businesses to be more and more creative and customer oriented.

(Photo: Professor Frank Piller, Director TIM at RWTH Aachen, outlining the pace of technological innovation)

Another key speaker of the day was Professor Thomas Gries, the director of the Institute for Textiles (ITA), who amazed students with the cutting edge industrial materials that are being engineered and commercialized in Aachen. Professor Gries described how “smart textiles” or “smart textronics” are being used with greater frequency in among others building materials, the automotive industry, and in mass customization.

(Photo: Professor Thomas Gries from the Institute for Textiles (ITA))

One of the new programs that start this year for the first time is the MME in Water Management. This unique program is directed by Professor Johannes Pinnekamp, who is the director of the Institut fur Siedlungswasserwirtschaft (ISA) and who welcomed students by telling them that water is essential in the history of Aachen, and that the very name of the city (Aquae Granni in Latin) refers to the water springs that were appreciated 20 centuries ago by the Romans.

Maastricht School of Management and RWTH Aachen University has no less than five collaborative M.Sc programs in Management and Engineering. The programs are in:

Want to join any of these exciting and uniquely relevant but challenging programs? Click here.

(Main photo: MSM Dean Professor Wim Naudé welcoming the new MME students at RWTH Aachen)