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This interview is in media partnership with the German startup association (Bundesverband Deutscher Startups https://deutschestartups.org/). Their German Startup Awards (GSA21) honor each year outstanding female and male founders and investors in special categories. You can learn more about the winners in our interview and on our website:
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Female Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 #GSA21
Henrike Schlottmann Co-Founder and Co-CEO of ProjectTogether (https://projecttogether.org/). She is a former Goldman Sachs intern and BCG consultant, turned social entrepreneur. She is also a great UK fan, one of the reasons she attended university in London, where she studied mathematics and modern languages.
After consulting she wanted to turn to the large issues and started with ProjectTogether a platform for open social innovations.
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This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
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Automated Transcript
[0:00] Startup Red Dot IO.
[0:09] Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startups.
[0:14] With News interviews and Live Events.Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startupradio your startup podcast and you to block from Germany as well as towards first internet radio station dedicated to startups and.Companies today I would like to welcome you to your new mini series together with a German startup Association we try to bring you an interview.Each and every winner of the German startups Awards 2021 as you can already guess I do have a winner here hey and Rica how you doinghello hello to I’m all the listeners out there I’m doing well today actuallyit’s quite a nice day out and looking forward to having this conversation with you youngI’m looking forward to it as well we may tell our listeners that you’re here because you’re the female entrepreneur of the year.
[1:12] In the German startup Awards 2021congratulations let us first social enter entrepreneur of the year which is quite exciting social entrepreneur I’m so sorry and social entrepreneur of the yearGerman startup what’s 2021 I’m so sorry but before we get into why you won that award let us talk a little bit aboutwhat you’ve been doing as to listeners already can tell you have a slight UK accent in your English and you went to University in London.
[1:49] How did you end up there that is that was definitely quite a ride so I spent I spent some time in the UK.When I was 15 16 and I kind of fell in love with the country and then I am came back to Germany and I did my.IB International Baccalaureate and at a German state school so I also I also talked a normal German a beat or andBend yeah and then I really wanted to go back to do UK and I applied to a broad range of different M universities what I knew back then is that I wanted to study mathematics which is not quite the usualthing to study I guess but I always I was really likemath and so I applied to different universities ended up at UCL you really loved my time at UCLA visum I think UCL is about a hundred and thirty different.Nationalities so it’s very very International crowd and I really enjoyed my four years and in LondonI’m seeing here on your LinkedIn profile as everybody else can do because your LinkedIn profile will be linked down here.Mathematics with modern languages that is quite a combination what why did he choose to do that.Well so I summer main focus wasn’t on maths and pure maths but I also took classes in Spanish and French.
[3:17] Em and I don’tI do think that’s math and languages are in a way related like matters a universal language right like it’s a way of expressing in a very precise waydefinition proofs Concepts ideasand and obviously French and Spanish are also languages and it’s kind of key to cute or infamy I guess it’s different ways of communicating with people and languages have have always been very.And wait very dear to my heart and it’s always interesting to learn new languages and forms of communication.
[3:53] I got a challenge for you what is your most favorite word because for me and Spanish when I was studying Spanish.That I used later on in college in Texas.Quite extensively when I took an afternoon nap I told my roommates una or Rita it’s the cuteness form of 1 hour.What will be what will be your favorite word in Spanish and French oh my God that’s such a difficult question we got do the easy questions here sorry.You definitely definitely don’t do the dude easy questions what I was just thinking of his I like words that.
[4:34] That I usually come from one languages from one language but then I just taken over into another language like the Zeitgeist andyou know those words that I actually I think those words are quite interesting because you know you just take it from another language and thenand use it in a new language because it’s there’s no real translation for it so I think that’s that’s quite interesting word so what are your favorite words.So if you have if I have to say something then in French it would be for me cause all what’s up I get.I think I’m going really enjoyed this interview you will oh my God I’m trying to think of like beautiful words I think it’s.
[5:24] I’m thinking it’s like the different words for a little look at the the summer or.I think you know French language and generalists is quite a beautiful.A beautiful language so definitely way way more beautiful than German just from the sheer sound of it.Huh so you’ve been math crack studying modern languages and then you ended up.As a consultant with BCG.
[5:58] Why did he decide to go for Consulting and what did you learn there.Hmm I mean studying maths at a British University you.You don’t get to see many different job opportunities and well opportunities yes but differentthree appearances in choice so I guess whatM what is being portrayed to use is mainly a you can work in Investment Banking you can work in Consulting you can work in insurance.
[6:28] And maybe you can go into one of theand a big for and the KPMG PBW see but that’s essentially it and these are the companies you know that get invited to university university and so I would say so that’s kind of what it felt like what range was and so I as you said earlier and I had a quick look into one of the investment Banks and you act like that’s definitely not the way that I wanted to go into that other the career path that I wantfollow and and then decidedgo into Consulting actually right after University took a year out and kind of looked into different things and work first asked for a little bit and to really broaden my Horizon a little bit and work for umas a small sized company in Frankfurt and then interned with BCG and then ended up there for am almost three yearsand doing various Consulting project and is very very intense and interesting time I mean BCG is a very vibrant place right and lots of really young Talent.
[7:37] And very ambitious and driven people you get to see lots of different Industries I was lucky as someyou know I where’s the busy teacher to Juventus project as well it’s a it’s a subpart of BCG what I builtstartups for a for a longer project oh and that was really quite interesting we looked into the fintech world.
[8:01] And in the end I had a feeling that you know.As Society we actually facing some of the we’ve actually facing some big big challenges and climate changes obviously just one and there’s lots of other challenges like mental health Mental Health crisis that were that were in at the moment you knowThe Divide between the rich and the poor that is and deepening and so on and so forth there’s like you knowthere is there is so much talent here yet these people are not working on some of the biggest challenges of our times and isn’t that something and that we should change isn’t thatthat’s something that we need to shouldn’t we build nice we’re all of these people can come together where we bundle of resources where we bundlebut these opportunities networks and to really start thinking and working them some of the some of the biggest challenges we face as a societyand when did she decide that when you got from a Consulting gig back like a 2 a.m. in the morning and fell onto your bed and thoughthmm I could do differently or was it you’ve been so thrilled by Consulting and thought Oh I learned everything now I have to go on.
[9:20] It’s always a process I want to say soI mean there are those moments where you think like hey I definitely want to get out of out of this I want to do something new I want to be crazy and that these moments definitely exists but it’s always and something.That has to develop and come up and and obviously you have to too.Trap in your thoughts as well and so that these were ideas that that I had in mind and then I actually met up withUniversity friend of mine and Philip my co coand I told him about these ideas and they said hey you know this is exactly what we what we have in mind as well for project together and yeah that that was the kind of the start from.For a project together it as it is day.
[10:13] Um I understood you’ve been in Consulting it was a process you decide to go crazy and rescue the world would project together with was that about it.
[10:24] Well you always have you always have to have big Visions missions ideas when you want to when you want to change something soand that’s definite here but back then it it all seemed seemed crazy we just knew you know we knew we wanted to do something we want to change something and.
[10:47] And you know now we are here two and a half years later and they’re still very much at the beginning of the transformation a transformation that will have to go through as a society over the next few years but.You know obviously with project together we’ve made them somesome progress built up a team and that’s really quite exciting.We may add for our listeners who not really seen this picture and see your name tag project together it’s actually not you call your company together and call it a project because but the actual name is project together.Dot orc and how did he come up with the name and what do you guys are actually doing there.And so what is it maybe one at little anecdotal because you because you just said it for your listeners and that definitely did does happen the project together so when we were like a few years ago when we were based in a co-working spaceand people sometimes came were sent up to us because because then you know at the.At the door they said like hey they’re here for a project together with I don’t know x y z and then people always thought oh what a heifer project together and send them up to us so that definitely does happen and.
[12:06] So what does what does what does them project together do so and essentially what we said is that hey you know.
[12:16] You know as I said earlier with facing Sundayssome of these big challenges and so many people are talking about the what like you know climate crisis all of these issues but I’m very few people are talking about that how do we actually get there and don’t do we not don’t we need like Innovation on theon the process on the method of how our society we can come up with these bottom are the ideas and actually Implement them soand we develop a process for that that we call open social Innovation and.Essentially we run massive open social Innovation programs while we work with.
[12:53] Hundred fifty sometimes even now we’re working with over 300 as Solutions around onesocietal issue to give you an example and so we take for example Agriculture and food and we say like hey how can we become my moment.Positive in the Agriculture and food space and it’s actually called fan foodI meant and we started working with fans and climate about a year ago and we wept with over a hundred different impact initiatives.And have you know all sorts of ideas of how we can how we can tackle that problem and what we do is then we support them with kind of everything they need.From what we call stipends so money.
[13:43] The expertise contacts into the you know.Public sphere but also companies organizations we connect the startups amongst themselves and we really build a community and an ecosystem.And around those challenges and we bundled together you know similar ideas partners that want to support the use.Because we really believe that it’s not just one idea that can solve these big challenges but it’s always cluster an ecosystem of ideas Partners Networks.And that can do that I was I would be a little bit curious how you get those projects started because he said you working in open.
[14:31] How do you call it open open social Innovation we call the Social Innovation projects you work together with a hundreds of counterparts and I do believe.
[14:44] You process is pretty good but not one person can handle it you need like a handful of people for that and.
[14:51] Where do you come up with the initial problem and how did you do you find the startups.
[14:59] That are then working on this so how do we come up with the problemwe’re constantly learning as well and trying out new things how we actually do that so for example for fans of climate that I just mentioned we actually had a three-month process where we ran weekly open discussion forums and dialogues and invited all sorts of expertscitizensFarmers to come and discuss with us what are the biggest problems in the space and you know sometimes we set a theme for a call and then kind of dived adapt a little bit deeper there and so yeah it was really a three months open dialogue to understand the field into spacefor umwhat is now called update Deutschland it Germany a new program that started in March we did a completely different process which is also really interesting we had him and open call for challenges so people fromyou know from the public sphere citizens and Civil Society organizations they were all asked toHendon different challenges that can create challenges that they were facing we got over 600different challenges and then kind of clustered them and and and so we’re in Germany are similar challenges that need to be need to be tackled that that has a very much open.
[16:28] A bottom-up open open process of how we came up with challenges that were then that are now being tackled in the programhi too bad if you if I didn’t know about thisI think I could have contributed at least 30 or 40 challenges.
[16:48] You said a few should have maybe to give it that example at some of your Miss listeners might have heard of last year we organized the Via versus vehicles hackathonmov advisors virus and and obviously the support program the six months for support program afterwards as well but the hackathon reorganized together with.Seven of those it was Society organizations in there and we obviously we have thea challenge like how did how you know how we’re going to solve all of these problems that than are arising with covid it was within the first week of of the lockdown and we literally justsit out there and we got over 2,000 and challenges back for the hackathon So within two days which isquite interesting back then and then just posted the entire list of challenges for hackathon.
[17:43] I would be now curious about two things first who can approach you.With challenges will weigh and how do you funked actually the working on those challenges.So for different programs as I just said it will give you different examples it kind of depends on under process for an update Germany.Essentially everybody all kinds kinds of citizens Civil Society organizations could come up and and contribute challenges so we’re really quite open there.
[18:21] M how do we then work on these and how do we how do we fund ourselves so how do we work on these is its.You know we choose hundred hundred and fifty with update Germany it’s more than 300 initiatives impact startupsorganizations that were now working with and then at the core of that.Of that community and we support them with voluntary coachesex pads organizations that contribute resources and all sorts of things and then obviously for every program we have Partners to help us Finance this that can beorganizations and companies and or its foundations.
[19:15] And they kind of Spencer.The you know the work that goes into it from our site and the operational operational costs behind it.
[19:27] And for the people the organization’s the impact startups to social startups the.Whoever helps to solve those challenges how do you find them and what can they expect from a corporation.So and these impact initiatives impact startups organizations that wesupport we literally have an open call for a roomapplication so you know once we’ve found the challenge and we say like hey who has an idea of how we can tackle this and you know they can be very very early stage as you can you only need like a team and an ideato join and or you can be a little bit further along the lines and already have a concept or a proven conceptfor something that fits the challenge and for you know view versus reels and update and updateGermany and its it was also possible for people without an idea or withouta team to join because we had these you know starting points this hackathon like weekends it was no 48 hours startingfriend and we’re all of the people and who wanted to contribute came together and discussed challenges discussed.
[20:52] Ideas it was some it was a weekend in March where 5,000 people came together digitally online and people who think the D600 people who contributed challenges ayou know they gave gave a little bit of context around their challenges and then people started ideating on the ideas some people actually lot of people brought existing initiativesand and ideas and then people could either join initiative or start a new one and some new lots of new ideas also came out of.That we can’t so it’s either you knowyou have an idea and you know build up on it and you’re a little bit further along the line or you have no idea no team and you join one of those weekends and Tasha are dating.
[21:44] That would have been my question if I could have just drawn to you as a team of me and my cat Okay mmm.Of course if you want to use something around cats then that could be a great teammate.Okay.I not sure how well your cat is handling Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and things like that.Just awesome walks across the keyboard everything’s totally fine Mmm Yeah.Sometimes even something interesting comes up there we’ve been now talking what project together.Is some of your projects.People know down here in the show notes they can learn more and is it there.A special project you’ve been receiving the award for or was it just that you and protect together are awesome.
[22:45] If you have to ask the the jury and it’s I guess one thing that is very important to me is that.Obviously you know the.I was the one who held the trophy and you know I said thank you for the award but it’s actually lots of people out there that the entire project together communityand all of the other civil society organizations that we work with the entire team you know so many people have put so much effort into what project together is today all of our volunteers so these this award is definitelybelongs as much to them as it belongs to me and that’s really what you know what is also part of our name right it’s project together wewe will not be able to solve these challenges alone only if we come together and a society available radius bottom up together that’s supporting each other start thinking and networks andMasters and and support system rather than competition and female ideas and.Pushing single ideas so yeah I guess that’s that’s also part of.Part of you know what this Ward kind of.
[24:04] Or I hope that’s kind of what the support was that the award wants to.Underline or give credit to when you’ve been talking about it belongs toall the people working on project together I was wondering you keeping the word somewhere in the office where everybody can see and touch it not yet because I haven’t really been back to the office yet right because of Corona we’re in.And home office and lock down but I will yeah we’ll definitely keep it in you tweet us a picture.I’m sure yeah nice but I’ll try and do that.That would be quite a lot more to talk about but we’re now running approximately at 25 minutes with our recording I’d likethank you very much doctor startups dot-org for making this interview possible and everybody would like to learn more of course good down here in the show notes there will be at least a linkto our blog post or go to dubstep right today oblock and there you’ll find the interview of Henry K and all the other.
[25:24] Award winners we can get our hands on.
[25:28] And the find all the links leading to project together update Dodge luck updatebutchered it was update dot right yeah two languages come back combined I was always want to say update Germany but no it’s updated and V versus virus your LinkedIn profile and everything else.Thank you very much it was just a pleasure having you as a guest thank you very much.
[25:55] If you are a professional looking at the European startup scene Germany is a place you cannot miss.
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[26:13] Most likely you have never heard or read anything only startups before in English but you will in the future be ahead of the curve And subscribe to stay.
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