On Good Ground
Every hobby gardener knows that the right soil for healthy growth is needed. And if you want to harvest something, even more so. It’s no different when starting up a business—if you want sustainable growth for your company, you should know the perfect location.
The German “Startup Monitor 2020” (DSM) shows that the federal state of Hessen offers good ground for establishing companies and start-ups. It is showing a positive trend for the Hessian start-up ecosystem. Compared to 2019, it is recording growth of 3.3 %—the strongest in Germany. The state of Hessen also scores well in the area of education. The Technical University of Darmstadt is the first university in Hessen to be among the top 10 start-up universities in Germany. What it offers is also complemented by the Digital Hub Cybersecurity, also located in Darmstadt.
However, coronavirus has also changed the requirements for the perfect foundation of your own company. Individual location factors have thus rapidly gained in importance. Keywords here: degree of digitalization. Darmstadt is also making positive headlines here too. The city in southern Hessen achieved a place in the top 5 of the smartest cities in Germany in the nationwide Smart City Index 2020 from the digital association Bitkom—and has climbed from tenth place to number four. This makes Darmstadt the best medium-sized city. In the Smart City Index, independent experts from Bitkom analyze and evaluate the digitization of cities. Five categories are examined: urban IT infrastructure, energy/environment, mobility, and society and administration. Darmstadt made it into the top 10 in the first four categories. One example of an innovative smart city solution is the central urban data platform in Darmstadt, which is used by numerous public projects: from digital measurement of air quality and bathwater quality to finding your way around buildings in public hospitals. In other words, the best prerequisites for ensuring sustainable growth even in these times of coronavirus!