17 Jul 2018

Technology Becomes Fashion at Telekom Fashion Fusion Awards Ceremony in Berlin

I had the pleasure of being invited to Telekom’s Fashion Fusion Challenge closing ceremony in Berlin. And what I have discovered later to be more of an honour was spending time and enjoying a thoughtful conversation with Hans-Christian Schwingen, Chief Brand Officer at Telekom who won the CMO of the year award in 2016!

What was most impressive for me as an entrepreneur is seeing Antje Hundhausen of Telekom, being introduced as the Founder of Fashion Fusion – I know how sensitive companies are in calling a staff a “Founder” of something, so it was good to see an example where “Intrapreneurship” goes beyond lip service.

The same also happened with the Founders of “Electronic Beats” despite being staff on Telekom payroll, they maintained a long term “Founder” status of the business division. It also seemed like they had to “compete” internally for Telekom resources which was pretty close to how my world of “entrepreneurship” works!

You can find more information about the impressive projects that won everywhere, but I’m sharing my personal reflections and time spent at the event.

Network Nerves

I like to start at the end, that’s why Network Nerves landed most of my attention, probably also because it was the most visually active project – and if I want to be more honest,  probably because it had the most attractive project owners as well! – Network Nerves uses “Smart Textile” to empower performers to express themselves on stage, the idea is great, the team intended to use a liquid for illumination but ran into “Mechanical” challenges so ended up using leds – the team didn’t seem to be happy about how it turned out to be. As an Engineer, I promised to look at the issue and offer support on resolving it, the market is niche and tricky, but this could be something.

#TelekomFashionFusion Network Nerves offers performers a new way to express themselves on stage through smart textile #Berlin @TelekomFashionFusion pic.twitter.com/qc7dT7tRUc

— Egypt Entrepreneur (@Egypreneur) July 3, 2018

Project Love

Project Love left me in awe, at the beginning it seemed very simple and basic business model of providing “PLus Size” with wardrobe options with a better fashion taste, but I was impressed to see their 3D scanner technology, where they can produce a 3D version of you through just an App and a scanning booth, then, you are able to pick the items that would fit it through the app, making it easier for them to identify specific size and fashion needs. On a proper scale, this project could be a winner too.

Petra from Project Love… Making it easier for Plus Size to find the fashion suitable to them backed by a 3D body scan technology @TelekomFashionFusion pic.twitter.com/h7lKlWscOR

— Egypt Entrepreneur (@Egypreneur) July 3, 2018

Smart Orthosis

How about you get a vibration everytime your posture is not right? Sounds a bit creepy, but Smart Orthosis offers a vest with a digital neuro-network that analyzes your posture through bluetooth connection to your phone and upon detecting a harmful posture, you get a vibration to adjust your posture. It seems to have benefits in theory, I’m not sure in practice whether you’d like to be vibrated into when your posture is not alright. Probably I would like to try that for a day and judge by the level of comfort later.

Smart Orthosis help correct unhealthy habits leading to back pain by using a vibration to notify you when your posture is unhealthy #TelekomFashionFusion pic.twitter.com/uq91kOwWhA

— Egypt Entrepreneur (@Egypreneur) July 3, 2018

The sweetest thing at the end of the ceremony was that my friend and DJ from Canada, Sarah Barrable, managed with her smooth diplomacy and leadership skills to take over the DJ table and produced some awesome dance Music for the whole crowd! For which all our group, event staff, attendees and remaining Telekom staff enjoyed sharing and connecting..