Help for South Hessian companies with digitization

DARMSTADT – (red). The Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum (MDZ) Darmstadt has been offering small and medium-sized companies advice on digital transformation that is specially tailored to their requirements for years. As early as 2016, the institution entered into a partnership with the economic region Bergstrasse/Wirtschaftsförderung Bergstrasse GmbH (WFB). This cooperation has now been renewed. The goal is to join forces in raising awareness, supporting and promoting medium-sized companies in digitization, the MDZ and WFB announced.

“Digitization is of enormous importance for the future viability and competitiveness of companies,” emphasized Bergstrasse District Administrator Christian Engelhardt. “By renewing the cooperation, we want to further intensify our companies’ contact with research and application-related science and give our companies targeted innovative impetus in the field of digitization.”

Prof. Dr.-Ing Joachim Metternich is looking forward to the cooperation: “The Bergstrasse economic region is an important partner. After the successful completion of the previous project, the Mittelstand 4.0 Competence Center Darmstadt, we can now join forces to further advance digitization in small and medium-sized companies. Our learning factories and laboratories at the TU Darmstadt and the Fraunhofer Institutes are still open to small and medium-sized companies free of charge so that they can experience the possibilities of digitization in a practical way.”

The MDZ is part of the Mittelstand Digital network, with which the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology has been supporting small and medium-sized companies and the skilled trades in the digital transformation since 2016. In it, seven institutions from science and practice – four institutes of the TU Darmstadt, two Fraunhofer Institutes and the IHK Darmstadt Rhein Main Neckar – bundle their digitization know-how. Current results from the accompanying research at the TU Darmstadt and the Fraunhofer institutes can be transferred directly to medium-sized companies.