Bremen “New Space” Delegation Tour of the USA

20 June 2016

Bremen Invest (Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen, WFB) is offering the opportunity to visit “new space” companies in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. The tour is aimed primarily at CEOs, founders and aspiring entrepreneurs from the aerospace industry in Bremen.

The State of Bremen has declared the aerospace industry a priority for the city and seeks to further its profile in the field. The sector employs over 12,000 people in the city that is home to some of the world’s top aerospace companies such as Airbus Defence and Space, and OHB Systems AG. Bremen’s expertise in cutting-edge technologies in aviation and aerospace is well known throughout Europe and it is one of the most productive regions for the sector. In order to promote the development of Bremen as a centre for the aerospace industry, the city is developing an aerospace industry network with other space clusters in Europe and Worldwide.

Space is a vibrant and high-growth sector and is an essential part of the global economy. It is already well established in North America but the “new space” movement, with commercialisation and entrepreneurship drivers, is only just reaching Europe. The movement started successfully with the first Startup Weekend Space in Bremen, in which Design & Data played an active role. Most recently, the Disrupt Space Summit took place in the city – the first of its kind to connect 200 startups, decision makers and aspiring entrepreneurs – to collaboratively solve today’s industry and sustainability problems using space.

Design & Data are now working with Bremen Invest in the organisation of a Bremen Delegation tour to California to get an insight into the “New Space” sector in the USA. The tour consists of an eight-day programme from 13-21 August 2016 to visit a number of space startups, organisations, incubators and educational institutions in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

The whole objective of the tour is to learn from the USA, how to integrate a Silicon Valley approach to entrepreneurship into the European space sector. Bremen Invest plans to create an entrepreneurial hub for commercial space ventures in the city as part of follow-on activities from Startup Weekend Space: Bremen, Disrupt Space and the upcoming IAC 2018 that will also be held in Bremen. The aim of the trip is to bridge connections between the USA and Europe that could develop into interesting business opportunities, supporting the development of successful space startups in Europe.

The tour will include the Senator of Bremen for industry and ports, a number of executives from Bremen’s aerospace sector, the winners of the Disrupt Space challenges and selected aspiring entrepreneurs from Bremen and Europe. Interested parties are invited to register their interest to participate on the tour at the following website: http://2016usaspace.bremen-invest.com