On the first day we invited our participants from Estonia, Finland, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania to the Embassies of the Nordic Countries where we were welcomed by the ambassador of Finland, Ms. Ritva Koukku-Ronde, and had presentations from experts of different fields such as Berlin Partner, Medienboard, Investitionsbank Berlin and the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft on funding opportunities and setting up a business in the region.
Afterwards we went on a sightseeing bus tour through Berlin and later on visited some of the big players of the region, such as GameDuell, Wooga and Yager, but also the indie game collective Saftladen, which hosts not only indie game studios like Studio Fizbin and Maschinenmensch but also multiplicators like Lorenzo Pilia (BerlinGameScene, Talk&Play). We enjoyed all the presentations and the tours through the companies and could have easily spent a lot more time at every single one of them.
After this busy day we deserved a little “rest”, and what would be a better place to relax than the games:net Summer Reception with 350 professionals from the Berlin games and VR industry. Networking while having a good barbecue and a cold beer in a chill atmosphere is always a great way to get to know interesting people, no matter whether for future business cooperations or just to connect and exchange knowledge about the local industries.
After day 1 with a focus on games, day 2 was all about VR, service providers and institutions. We started off at the great office location of Exozet at the old airport Tempelhof and had inspiring presentations by Henry Bauer about Exozet itself, Michael Liebe from Booster Space about his project Duel VR and Sönke Kirchhof from INVR. Also one of the participants, Maria Loktionova from There’s no Spoon, introduced us to her companies’ project. Afterwards we were of course invited to try some of the VR experiences and mingle with the experts.
After a nice lunch and enough coffee, we continued with our programme and were guests at Altagram, a localization specialist, where Marie Amigues gave us a tour, explained all about her company’s work and took the time to answer all of our questions.
We were even lucky enough to pick the right date for 48h Berlin so we could attend a final exam presentation of some of the students at Games Academy. We were delighted that the students took the time to connect to our participants and answer questions about their work. It was definitely an interesting get-together for both the students and our participants.
For the last part of the programme, the SAE Institute invited us to their wonderful location right at the river Spree. Peter Duhr and Boris Kummerer welcomed us very warmly and took us on a tour through the institute. At one of the audio studios we ran into the “legendary strawberryman” who then proceeded to give us a little private concert on his sax-didge (a mix of saxophone and didgeridoo). Since it was our last stop, the SAE Institute organized a farewell drink with an amazing buffet. Their gameslab was a lot of fun and we stayed way longer than originally expected. Let’s take that as a very good sign for the dynamic within the group and the hosts. 🙂
Thank you to our BBN.net partners and supporters for taking the time to participate in 48h Berlin and therefore making this tour a success:
Raphael Kube (Investitionsbank Berlin), Ina Göring (Medienboard), Birgit Reuter (Berlin Partner), Rayk Reitenbach (IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft), Boris Wasmuth (GameDuell), Martina Cepek (GameDuell), Maike Steinweller (Wooga), Timo Ullmann (Yager), Henry Bauer (Exozet), Sandrina Mann (Exozet), Sönke Kirchhof (INVR), Michael Liebe (Booster Space), Marie Amigues (Altagram), Marc Richter (Games Academy), Thomas Dlugaizcek (Games Academy), Boris Kummerer (SAE Institute), Peter Duhr (SAE Institute).
And of course a big thank you to all of our participants! We really enjoyed having you here and hope to see you all again sometime soon!
We had a blast! If you don’t believe us, check our zipstrr-video below: