(left to right: Manfred Häberlein (Town Friedrichshafen), Carola Buchwald (Bodensee Standort Marketing GmbH), Guido Hubmann (Canton Thurgau), Josef Büchelmeier (Mayor, Town Friedrichshafen), Friedhelm Schaal (Town Constance), Lothar Wölfle (Administrator for the District of Lake Constance), Stefan Gebauer (b.free) and Benedikt Otte (Wirtschaftsförderung Bodenseekreis GmbH))
The cooperation is beginning to bear fruit. Participating this year is the Canton of Thurgau, the towns Constance and Singen, the "Wirtschafts-Standort Vorarlberg GmbH" and "Bodensee Standort Marketing GmbH", who is equally responsible for coordination of the project. Newly won for 2008 is the Town of Friedrichshafen, the "Wirtschaftsförderung Bodenseekreis GmbH" and at the Milk Bar, the initiative b.free.
At the region’s booth, there have been more and more enquiries regarding concrete projects and it’s just a matter of time before a large project will be able to be realised. As just one example, Constance’s municipal council recently decided by large majority to start a Europe-wide invitation to tender for the planned music- and conference centre. “For this project, we received major impulses from conversations with investor consortiums at EXPO REAL 2006 and 2007,” says Friedhelm Schaal from the business-promotion service for Constance “Wirtschaftsförderung Konstanz”.
The guiding vision of Bodenseeland – UNITEDINNOVATIONS is not an empty promise but an actual fact, and something with a long tradition. Did you know, for example, that the first personal computer in the world was invented in Constance with the micro-program “Nixdorf 820” by Ilse- and Otto Müller in 1972? Ten years before the U.S. had such a system, the first client-server-system was in use here in 1976. Unlike the real Silicon Valley, the Lake Constance Region is not limited to one dominating field of technology but presents competence in several areas, such as environmental technology, packaging technology, life sciences, mobility technology and food – just to name the major ones. Added to this are renowned universities and a quality of life not often found.
At EXPO REAL, the Lake Constance Region will be flaunting its stuff. Carola Buchwald: “We want to anchor the region internationally in the minds of companies, investors and project developers as an attractive and innovative business location.” To be particularly underlined is the immense development- and growth potential of the region’s clusters – be it alternative energy and water processing, new materials and packaging technology, mobile communication, automotive components and (space) aviation. Further examples of the dynamics and innovative potential of the Lake Constance Region include the project T-City in Friedrichshafen, the Baden-Württemberg specialist centre for satellite navigation in Constance or the biotechnology network BioLAGO.
Buchwald mentions another important quality of Lake Constance Region’s booth at EXPO REAL, “We truly present our region as one. It is not a collection of individual exhibitors. There are no separate contact points as is often the case with other regional booths.”
Meeting point at the booth is the legendary milk bar, the only milk bar at the fair, initiated this year for the first time in cooperation with an alcohol-prevention project launched by the Rotary clubs in Singen and Radolfzell-Hegau. Here, the barkeeper of the mobile juice- and non-alcoholic bar has created apple- and pear milk shakes specially made to represent the region – naturally with juice from fruits picked from Lake Constance Region’s many fields.
EXPO REAL, the 11th international trade fair for commercial real estate will be taking place from 6 to 8 October 2008 at the venue “Neue Messe München”. This is the event for networking for international projects, investors and financing. It reflects the entire spectrum of business real estate and offers a networking platform for the most important markets from Europe to Russia, the Middle East, to the U.S. An extensive conference programme with approx. 400 speakers offers a good overview of current trends and innovations in the real estate-, investment- and financing market. At EXPO REAL 2007, there were 1,823 companies represented from 43 countries and 23,800 visitors from 77 countries. Together with the representatives of the companies exhibiting, this made more than 39,000 participants in the fair.
This project is co-financed with Interreg IV funds.
