It’s three years since LabCampus celebrated its official launch. And there’s no doubt that the world—and the world of work around us—are very different places. The pandemic has fundamentally rocked business and society, but both have adjusted quickly—developing transferable experiences that are redefining work models fast. Which makes it all the more exciting that—in parallel—LabCampus has been physically taking shape! With no delay to progress. Adjusting our office layouts to the latest work models and expanding our service portfolio to offer residents tangible solutions for the next-normal. So where have we focused our attentions?

It’s been 36 months of developing a community: That’s because collaboration is the new innovation. And it takes a rich and diverse community to foster it. It’s also why we appointed Andrea Hofmann, to position of Community Manager who quickly became a member of the Future Meeting Space Research team. Unlike our live “Connect” event in 2019, this year we’ve reached out to our potential community digitally. At our “taste the future” community event we combined a wine tasting experience with an open discussion about the future of work—ignited by a fascinating keynote from Prof. Dr. Nicolas Burkhardt entitled “Corona as New Work trigger – why there’s more than just home office to come”.

It’s been 156 weeks of creating a physical campus: A campus that will one day be strong enough to boost the local, regional and national economy. And it’s now taking physical and tangible shape with LAB 48—the premier address on campus–receiving its concrete reinforcements. A great reason to celebrate our “Richtfest” in April. Here, on an area of 30,000 square meters, LAB 48’s four office floors have been conceived to offer maximum flexibility. We published our first expose—which among others includes information on our “Leitmotif Interior” for the layout—minimalist, contemporary and urban spaces—and three underlying design concepts: loft, nature and tech. We’ve also made great progress where ambience and orientation are concerned. For the ultimate in wayfinding, we’ve had luminous tree sculptures built that adapt to their environments creating lighting zones. And the main street, quarters and squares now all have their own distinctive names. We are also working on a gastronomy—a modern, urban bistro concept caters to all needs.

It’s been 1,096 days of enabling future innovators to experiment: That’s because we know that testing, experimenting, failing and learning should be encouraged within any innovative environment. So, in 2019 we launched our first TestLab at Terminal 2 of the airport. Next, we turned our attentions to establishing a center of excellence focusing on new mobility solutions like for example autonomous driving. Great news here: Just six months ago, Argo AI, one of the world’s leading technology companies in the autonomous driving sector, became one of our first signed residents. They’ll be using a huge test track space to put cars through their paces in realistic traffic situations.

It’s been 26,304 hours of cultivating partnership: Just five months ago the MIT’s Senseable City Labs team issued their second report referring to developments on campus. And our real estate partner, CBRE, has not only created a virtual tour for potential tenants, they also hosted a shared event with us on April 25th entitled “The district of the future” —which attracted businesses from Munich, Bavaria and beyond. And let’s not forget that we’ve also responded to the demand for new forms of living arrangement by partnering with Hyde Living—for the first Hyde Living serviced apartments in Europe.

It’s been 1,578,240 minutes of sparking dialog across industries: Afterall we take our role as “impulsgeber” seriously. Last year we co-hosted our first hybrid event with the Munich Innovation Ecosystem (MUST). Here we invited a mixed audience to debate “New Mobility: Made in Munich?”. And this year, organized by the US Consulate in Munich and orchestrated by LabCampus, we debated a similar subject matter at the Transatlantic Innovation Week (20 April 2021). Alongside a panel with Intel, Yunex Traffic by Siemens Mobility, Argo AI and Virgin Hyperloop we discussed “How to realize New Mobility solutions through Transatlantic Collaboration”. And we’ve sparked ideas in print too: With a target audience of CEO’s spanning all industries, it was very great to see Sarah Wittlieb’s (VP Sales & Innovation) article published in B(o)ard Karte last month. Here’s her fascinating piece entitled: “Framing the future of work: Where people, ideas and technology converge."

So many activities. So many achievements. But ask us what we think they all have in common, and we’d answer: collaboration. Everything we do at LabCampus is about bringing a diverse mixture of people together to create a stronger future. And as 2022 and our go-live date get closer and closer, we’re still on target to do this exactly as we said we would. That’s 94,694,400 seconds of total commitment to a very important cause.