An Evening of Opportunities: Welcome to the Elite Network!

Mem­bers of the Elite Net­work trav­eled from all over Ba­varia to Mu­nich to ex­change ide­as and get to know the offer­ings of the Elite Net­work. After a cas­ual recep­tion, where initial con­tacts were al­ready made, the doors to the Au­dimax of the Tech­nical Uni­versi­ty of Mu­nich opened.

The event was hu­morously and ex­pertly host­ed by Mag­dale­na Bol­sing­er, alum­na of the Max We­ber Pro­gram. Fol­low­ing her wel­com­ing re­marks, Min­isteri­alrätin Beate Lind­ner, head of the net­work's co­ordi­nation of­fice, intro­duced the net­work and ex­plained its struc­ture and mis­sion.

Sub­se­quent­ly, vari­ous net­work mem­bers pre­sent­ed the indi­vidual offers and events. Umaima Ehtasham spoke about her partic­ipa­tion in the Euro­Sci­ence Open Fo­rum in Lei­den, while Anni­ka Böh­ler shared her im­pres­sions from the 2024 Lindau No­bel Lau­reate Meet­ing. Anna Hench in­formed at­ten­dees about the coop­era­tion with the Akademie für Politische Bild­ung in Tutz­ing, and Sever­in König intro­duced the Elite-Cup. Dr. Bar­bara Beege and Dr. Jana An­tosch-Bar­dohn pro­vided in­sights into the soft skills semi­nars, while Mag­dale­na Bol­singer pre­sent­ed the grad­uation cere­mony. Tobi­as Markl con­clud­ed the presenta­tions with prac­tical in­for­mation about the web­site and how to navi­gate the Com­muni­ty Portal.

In the sec­ond part of the event, two speakers shared ex­citing in­sights into their career paths. Prof. Dr. Laura Busse, a pro­fessor of Or­gan­ismic Neu­rosci­ence at LMU Mu­nich and re­searcher in the Elite Grad­uate Pro­grams "Hu­man Biol­ogy" and "Neu­ro-Cognitive Psy­chol­ogy," spoke can­didly about the chal­lenges of an aca­demic career and the sur­pris­ing twists hid­den be­tween the lines of her CV. Dr. Jan Goetz, an alum­nus of the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram "Ba­varian Grad­uate School of Com­puta­tional Engi­neer­ing" and 2023 Founder of the Year, traced the fasci­nating jour­ney of his com­pany IQM Quan­tum Com­put­ers, whose first busi­ness plan was scrib­bled on a piece of paper in an in­door play­ground, and which now builds quan­tum com­puters as a Euro­pean pio­neer. After the presenta­tions, partic­ipants had the op­por­tunity to ask ques­tions and en­gage in per­sonal dis­cussions with the speakers.

Fol­low­ing the talks, guests en­joyed an even­ing buffet ac­com­panied by lounge mu­sic, allow­ing them to un­wind and net­work. The in­form­ative and inspir­ing event con­clud­ed at 9:00 PM, laying the foun­dation for an active and en­riching mem­ber­ship in the Elite Net­work of Ba­varia.