Julia joins the team

Julia Warmers studied German language and literature, social sciences and history at the University of Essen and then worked at the Centre for Art and Media technology in Karlsruhe (2003-2005). From 2005 to 2012, she was head of the “art, sciences & business” program at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. She continued to teach in the Department of General and Interdisciplinary Studies at the Munich University of Applied Science from 2010 to 2013.

Just a few days ago I was cordially welcomed as project coordinator and as a new member of the Hybrid Plattform team. These have been inspiring days and I have experienced many new contacts in diverse meetings, the great success of my colleagues' busy last year, and the strategies for the upcoming hybrid year(s).

I was also happy to attend the last Hybrid Talks at the beginning of November that provided me with a first look into the platform's interdisciplinary character (and learned a lot about aquatic plants as the water's green “liver” and Berlin's last century aquaculture, a. o.). Did you know that the Hybrid Plattform has been supporting and is involved in around 40 projects within the 1.5 years of its existence? Pretty amazing number... The large project “Rethinking Prototyping” is in the early stages: funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin, three research groups – including architects, engineers, and designer – will begin investigating different notions of the prototype by January 2013. We are currently preparing next year's events; amongst them is the second Hybrid Retreat on “Elegant Conjunctions”, which aims at enhancing a fruitful exchange of knowledge, experience, and new thoughts between the two university's members from a wide range of disciplines. Finally, our team is working on a revised version of this website for implementing social media and providing more interactive elements for our networkers.

I am very much looking forward to future encounters and cooperations with our projects partners, faculty members and students of both universities, further collaborators, and our funders in the context of this truly smart, intriguing, and promising initiative. Keep on rocking, Hybrid Plattform!

– Julia