Launching Copenhagen Hardware Alliance

 

Two weeks ago, as part of my work at Danish Design Centre, I had the pleasure of co-launching a new initiative titled Copenhagen Hardware Alliance as well as co-hosting the initiative's first meetup, which took place in Copenhagen makerspace UNDERBROEN.

Copenhagen Hardware Alliance is a new initiative to boost hardware startups across Denmark, and builds on work by CIID, Delta Lab and City of Copenhagen/ Copenhagen Solutions Lab, who has been building a network for hardware startups in Copenhagen over the last year or so (previous titled Hardware Consortium). The initial idea in the making of this network was to build a stronger hardware community in Denmark, and this mission is carried on into the Copenhagen Hardware Alliance, which - alongside the original instigators - broadens the circle of founding organisations to also include Danish Design Centre and IDA (Danish Association of Engineers)

Copenhagen Hardware Alliance wants to:

1. Strengthen the hardware technology ecosystem in Denmark
2. Facilitate a stronger collaborative culture amongst practitioners working with hardware entrepreneurship

and aims at:

  • Bringing together Danish-based practitioners working with hardware
  • Developing a transparent mapping of the ecosystem of Danish hardware developers and manufacturers
  • Building a support system and pla orm for thought leaders, service providers, investors, incubators, and entrepreneurs working with hardware to meet up, network, exchange knowledge and collaborate
  • Developing a be er shared understanding of the processes of developing hardware technologies and bringing them to market (from both the technology, design and business side)
  • Creating a culture of knowledge-sharing, trust and collaboration among practitioners in the field

We are still exploring how this can best be carried out and which organisational structure is needed (as well as funding for that). For now, the continued effort to build the alliance will be based on goodwill and existing resources in the founding organisations, but hopefully this initiative will find its own feet over the next year.

Read more about our initial thoughts about the initiative in this 1-pager.

"Open door"-invitation to join

At this point it should also be emphasized that this is just a first stab at defining the initiative and is by no means final. On the contrary, Copenhagen Hardware Alliance is first and foremost a network-based entity, and we hope that many more will join us to help define the focus and scope  - including a lot of hardware starts from from across the fields of science, tech, design and business.

Kick-off meetup in UNDERBROEN

First step towards broadening the towards including many more participants was taken at the official launch of the initiative in a meetup on November 1, 2017, where approx. 40 people joined the discussion. The event not only laid the ground for discussions around scope, next steps, focus areas and so on, but also dedicated time to feature three demo's from leading hardware start-ups M-Payg and PlatoScience, as well as Delta/Force Technology's Idemolab.

Stay in the loop or get in touch...

Stay tuned on danskdesigncenter.dk for next steps - and do get in touch with me or my colleague Julie Hjort if you're interested in joining. Other touch points are co-founders Morten Wagner (Delta/Force Technology), Mikkel Holst (City of Copenhagen/Copenhagen Solutions Lab), Tina Ryoon (IDA) and Simon Herzog (Anglemap).

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