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Good ideas and suggestions from employees often do not leave this status. "Organizations must constantly reinvent themselves and adapt to the circumstances. This is especially true for small and medium-sized companies," agree Natalie Scheider, Innovation Gym project manager, and Dr. Henning Duderstadt, Innovation Office manager. Innovating in particular plays an important role in today's world.

With the "Innovation Gym," the Open Innovation City project offers institutions in East Westphalia-Lippe a free training format that helps them get to the next level of innovative capability. Through training by renowned innovation experts, employees are guided through four workshops in which they learn about current trends as well as innovation methods and tools to foster the creative process. "It is important that participants are interested in making a difference and are willing to leave their comfort zone," explains Natalie Schneider, adding, "They do not have to be innovation experts. However, they should have a desire to learn about new innovation methods, get in touch with other organizations and rethink internal processes." For the implementation, he adds, it is also helpful if participants bring along a challenge from their own organization. These challenges are always revisited and developed further with the help of specific methods. "Being innovative is an important goal for many companies and organizations, but the know-how in the form of qualified employees is often lacking. This is where the Innovation Gym comes in. With this format, we want to support organizations and professionals in this area," Duderstadt describes the training series.

The workshops (Megatrends, Crowdsourcing, Ideation, Concept and Validation) will each take place on one day (10:00 am to 6:00 pm). Application is accepted by Natalie Schneider at natalie.schneider(at)openinnovationcity.de or via the application form.