Innovation

The Power of Collaboration: BMW Foundation New Strategy

Oct 30, 2024 - Munich

The Power of Collaboration: At the Responsible Leaders Innovation Forum 2024, the BMW Foundation presented its new strategy and developed concrete plans for a sustainable social transformation together with leaders, industry experts, and innovators from politics, business, and science.

In October, the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt held its Responsible Leaders Innovation Forum featuring two high-level Institution Roundtables in Berlin. The Forum provided a platform to discuss current society-wide challenges and concrete pathways to solutions. Its principal theme was the implementation of the energy transition and the sustainable transformation of industry and society. One of the key insights: There are already a host of innovative problem-solving approaches out there; now it's a matter of scaling and accelerating implementation. The Power of Collaboration – The BMW Foundation charts new pathsAt the Responsible Leaders Innovation Forum, the BMW Foundation also presented its new strategy, including its new vision and mission statements:
  • Vision: We believe in the power of collaboration. As a global network foundation, our ambition is to pave innovative pathways and make a tangible contribution to promoting responsible action. This is the only way we can tackle the challenges of our time, together.
  • Mission: We unite the brightest minds from business, policy, science, and civil society to jointly develop forward-looking approaches and solutions. This creates a positive dynamic that strengthens an innovative and responsible economy while also promoting an open-minded and future-proof society.
In her opening speech, Heba Aguib, Member of the Board of the BMW Foundation, invoked the power of collaboration: “All sectors of society, from politics to business to science, need to work together to jointly solve problems and thus achieve impact." She continued: "To this end, we have established a ‘Start to Impact (S2i)’ process to identify pressing challenges, and to scale and implement existing solutions. As part of this process, we connect with various initiatives, companies, and leaders to promote philanthropic-public-private partnerships."Heike Schneeweis, Member of theBoard of the BMW Foundation, added: "We are here to foster collaboration on the most pressing issues of our time. We need speed, innovation, and accountability to tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow. This includes international cooperation on the energy transition, for we want to drive decarbonization without jeopardizing economic competitiveness."Responsible Leaders Innovation Forum – An event for applied innovation The Responsible Leaders Innovation Forum offered a host of inspiring keynotes, panels, and workshops. In his keynote address, Yanis Varoufakis, economist and former Finance Minister of Greece, too emphasized the need for European collaboration and investments into Europe's future: "If we are going against the narrative of cohesion and moving towards fragmentation, this continent is doomed to stagnate for a century."Oliver Schmolke, Vice Chief of Staff and Director for General Domestic Policy at the Office of the Federal President, put the energy transition into political context: "If we want to drive change with rather than against the citizens, we need to focus on production facilities and on good jobs that secure income and revenues for public infrastructure."The discussed problems notwithstanding, the participants remained hopeful. Amani Abou-Zeid, Commissioner for Energy and Infrastructure at the African Union Commission, put it succinctly: "A crisis is the best time to make difficult decisions and change society for the better."While many events that focus on the future of the planet or society do not listen to young voices, this was not the case at the Responsible Leaders Innovation Forum. Students from a Berlin school and Young Delegates of the UN Summit of the Future coined a sentence that was frequently cited during the Forum: "No talk about the future without the future." In a cross-generational dialogue about the cities of the future, which was organized by the students themselves, the children's ideas found a receptive audience. Institution Roundtables – Empowering energy resilience and promoting innovationAt the event in Berlin, the BMW Foundation also organized two high-level Institution Roundtables in cooperation with the Energy Resilience Leadership Group (ERLG).One roundtable, entitled "Empowering Energy Resilience: How to Leverage Institutional Capital for Scaling Cleantech," discussed possibilities to mobilize public and private capital for scaling cleantech solutions. Participants included representatives of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, the BMW Foundation, Breakthrough Energy, KfW, KfW Capital, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Planet A Ventures, and Tech for Net Zero.Particular emphasis was on the necessity to strengthen philanthropic-public-private partnerships, the role of public funding programs such as the WIN initiative by KfW and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and the need for quick action and access to new funding tools such as outside financing.Another roundtable, "Promoting Innovation and Venture Capital for a Competitive Future," focused on the need for innovation, venture capital, and startup growth in Europe. This is the only way to secure global competitiveness and close Europe's innovation gap, particularly when it comes to the scaling of businesses. In this context, it also takes a reform of foundation law so that foundations can grow their role as catalysts in funding businesses. The roundtable brought together representatives of UnternehmerTUM, Breakthrough Energy, KfW, the Hasso Plattner Foundation, the Hasso Plattner Institute, the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of Justice, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and the BMW Foundation.The RESPOND Accelerator: Startups for a better futureThe current cohort of the RESPOND program, a startup accelerator jointly operated by the BMW Foundation and UnternehmerTUM, presented their business ideas in a unique pitch setting designed both to showcase their innovative approaches and to get feedback, support, and networking contacts from the audience.Over the last five years, RESPOND has supported more than 50 startups from around the world in scaling their businesses to drive innovations and advance the transition to a net-zero economy.RESPOND has just launched the application process for the program's Cohort #6. Startups, especially in the fields of energy transition, infrastructure, and industry decarbonization, can apply from November 1, 2024.

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