Join NBT’s Innovation Hub: Brains & Burgers
The Link Between Ideation, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
What makes an organization successful? New products and services? The management team and employees? Or does it boil down to big ideas and ambitious visions?
The answer? Business intelligence.
Times are changing and organizations need to adapt in order to remain competitive. This is supported by the fact that 80% of executives think their current business model is at risk of being disrupted in the near future if they fail to innovate.
As a solution, organizations are now opting to take part in ideation workshops to rally creativity in coming up with new ideas that could result in enhanced operational efficiencies, new products, or in some cases, completely new business ideas.
🧠 Enter Brains and Burgers — Next Big Thing AG’s new ideation workshop initiative launched as an open platform for experts to exchange ideas, network, and unleash cross-industry collaborations.Our new initiative aims to bolster community collaboration, support entrepreneurs, and drive rapid business ideation built on the principles of open innovation.
As an ideation expert, Next Big Thing AG is bringing unmatched value to SMEs and corporates. We do this by pooling our diverse talents and expertise together with our proven methodologies in finding the industry’s biggest pain points. With our laser-sharp focus, we can propose solutions to these challenges and find the most impactful ways that these organizations can become more innovative and recognized as pioneers and disruptors in the space.
Under this new open innovation paradigm, we want our workshops to open the door to corporate collaborations as a way to establish an open dialogue and critical thinking beyond industry borders. We have a lot to offer corporates in the German Mittelstand that want to keep their competitive edge and secure their position at the forefront of new developments. By combining our strengths, we aim to showcase how the venture studio framework complements the principles of open innovation by allowing a judgment-free space for stakeholders to step out of their routine and interact with new connections in an industry that yearns for innovation.
🎯 Our Mission
Brains and Burgers will comprise different workshops focused on various topics with selected experts in attendance.
In its simplest form, the purpose of these workshops is to create an open space for participants to brainstorm a specific industry’s biggest challenges and come up with possible solutions through a variety of different ideation exercises.
Our long-term goal is to establish strategic collaborations with corporate partners focused on creating innovative solutions that aim to solve persistent pain points within a specific industry.
We can more granularly define the purpose of our Brains and Burgers initiative as a means to:
- Facilitate corporate foundings
- Spur innovation and new ideas
- Expand our global network
📚 Topic Focus
Our ideation workshops will take place every three months in Berlin and focus on these core areas:
- The Food and Beverage (F&B) Industry
- Supply Chain and Logistics
- The Manufacturing Industry
- Climate Change and Sustainability
In the future, we may expand this initiative to include additional topics for upcoming ideation workshops.
As of now, the first ideation workshop will focus on the topic of the F&B industry and act as a pilot session for learning the best practices in achieving greater collective innovation amongst a variety of stakeholders.
Attendees will be divided into groups selected by the NBT team and participate in structured workshops that focus on exploring potential solutions based on a problem statement relating to the following three core challenges within the F&B industry:
- Quality assurance
- Sustainable production
- Supply chain
🔮 Innovation Ecosystem
The ideation workshops will comprise 20–25 participants that span corporates, startups, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders.
🧩 The Process
Each ideation workshop will follow a step-by-step process with the end objective kept front of mind: coming up with a number of innovative and disruptive ideas so that all participants can work together on filtering down to the best ones.
The five-hour workshop will consist of the following:
- Introduction and lunch
Here, we will outline the structure and intended outcome of the day. The NBT team will focus on bringing clarity to the design space as well as setting expectations for all participants. This is the stage when a member of the NBT team will run a short ice-breaker exercise to get everyone familiar with the other attendees. Following this exercise, each participant will be assigned to a workshop group.
- Presentation about NBT
We will briefly explain NBT’s journey as the leading venture studio in the Machine Economy, what we’ve achieved to date, and what we’re planning for the future. We’ll also present our exciting EiR initiative and how that offers entrepreneurs and aspiring founders a unique opportunity to get paid to test out ideas with a team invested in building impactful technology startups. In wrapping up the presentation, we’ll explain NBT’s tech stack and why it’s unparalleled in its offering.
- Partner Presentations from Experts in the Focus Industry
Experts from the focus industry will give an overview of the current landscape, the market, the general sentiment, and trends. Presentations will also be delivered from a unique perspective that looks more closely at the challenges associated with that specific industry.
- Workshops
The workshop will comprise a variety of ideation exercises that follows a set structure to guide participants through the flow of the day. In essence, the workshop will focus on exploring the main challenges found within a specific industry (e.g. the F&B industry) and get to grips with the various challenges experienced by the different stakeholders.
Once the main challenges are defined and understood from all angles, the groups will focus on diving deeper into priority areas and participants will identify which idea to focus on.
The final part of the workshop will focus on brainstorming solutions for the most prominent and urgent challenges identified in the previous workshop. No idea is too crazy here!
- Presentations and feedback
All groups will have the opportunity to present their solutions to the rest of the attendees. Each group will also have the opportunity to have an open discussion on the idea presented, its validity, how it can be improved, and more. As a round-off activity, the final ideas will be written down and each participant will have the chance to vote for which one they think will make the biggest impact according to the original problem statement.
- Networking
After the workshops, participants will have the opportunity to freely connect with all other attendees in a more casual setting with refreshments.
As a follow-up to the ideation workshop, participants will kindly be asked to fill out a feedback form. Participants are encouraged to share their honest feedback on what worked well and what areas could be improved. Participants will also have the chance to select if they would be interested in joining future NBT events and other workshops.
In addition, NBT will send all workshop participants a link to the day’s presentation and other possible collaboration approaches with NBT for those interested in partnering with us in the future.
🥇The Benefits
The ideation workshops are an engaging, interactive, hands-on approach to problem-solving. By leveraging a diverse variety of perspectives, we’re much more likely to gain a fresh take, think outside the box, and explore new ideas in a creative environment.
We offer our participants the following in exchange for their participation:
As this initiative has only just launched, we expect a number of additional benefits to arise as we continue to streamline the process.
🤩 Get Involved
At Next Big Thing AG, we pride ourselves on combining imagination with creativity to come up with bold ideas that will change the world. That’s why we believe in bringing the industry’s brightest minds together under one roof to explore and move the best ideas forward.
This is your chance to be one step closer toward meaningful innovation and have a hand in ideating impactful solutions that will solve some of the industry’s greatest challenges.
While our ideation workshops are invite-only, if you feel that you, or someone you know of, would bring additional value to ideation sessions, please send a request with the participant’s full name, company, and position to sebastian.blanke@nbt.ag
Or directly apply here.
Curious to know more about NBT? Learn about us here👇
