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Shaping Innovation: FLEX Course Brings Students and Waschhaus Potsdam Together
As part of the FLEX Innovation Seminar, students worked alongside the cultural organisation Waschhaus Potsdam to develop new business models and realistic concepts for future experiential formats.
In the summer semester of 2026, the FLEX course „Innovation Management: Developing Knowledge-Intensive Business Ideas in Collaboration with Waschhaus Potsdam“ took place for the first time. The multidisciplinary seminar, with Prof. Enrico Sass as Head of the course, forms part of the “Daily Business Management Techniques” module and was attended by students from various Departments. The course took place both on-site at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam and at the socio-cultural centre Waschhaus Potsdam with experts Mathias Paselk (Managing Director) and Tobias Marten (Booking).
As part of the seminar, the students explored the central question of how cultural offerings can be reimagined against the backdrop of digital and societal changes, and how this can lead to the development of economically viable formats and new start-up ideas.
It affects us all: shaping cultural offerings for the future
Course leader Prof. Sass emphasises the significant learning benefits of the seminar’s design for both the students and the „Waschhaus“ organisation: “What I find extremely exciting about this seminar is the combination of creativity, entrepreneurial thinking and the city of Potsdam. The students learn to develop business models using a straightforward approach and apply this knowledge directly to a real-world cultural organisation. It is important to me that innovation doesn’t just happen on paper. The students carry out research, conduct interviews and receive direct feedback from the management.”
The students, too, have spoken positively about their experiences on the FLEX course. Daniela Kühl from the Department of Social and Educational Sciences is one of the participants who chose this course to gain an insight into subject areas outside her degree programme: “I found it particularly interesting to engage in discussions with fellow students and the experts at the Waschhaus, and to learn how differently cultural offerings are received by different generations, and how formats need to be precisely tailored to their target audience against the backdrop of digitalisation.”
The students also emphasise that they were able to contribute their own ideas to the seminar and that there was plenty of freedom in designing the formats and projects. The combination of studying in person, online and independently is also seen as a pleasant learning environment.
Equally hybrid and interdisciplinary: a FLEX course in the winter semester with Radio TEDDY
A FLEX course with similar conditions but a different setting will take place in the coming winter semester in cooperation with the radio station TEDDY. The course FLEX 09 C: Business Model Development ‘The Radio of the Future – in cooperation with Radio TEDDY Potsdam’ starts on the 12th of October 2026 and is open for self-enrolment on Moodle. Together with the radio station, students will work on innovative content and formats for a medium that stands for diversity, cultural integration and a strong democracy.