Dr Birgit Thoben

• Innovation Manager – Innovation and Entrepreneurship Certificate Program – Leading Innovation, Stanford 2014.
• Innovation Specialist – Robert Bosch Kolleg, Stuttgart 2013.
• PhD German Aerospace Center e.V., Institute of Technical Thermodynamic / University of Stuttgart Institute for Thermodynamics and Heat Technology, (Supervisor: Prof Dr Dr-Ing. Müller-Steinhagen), Stuttgart 2006.
• MsC (Dipl.-Ing.) in Energy- and Process Engineering, with specialisation in energy technology, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin 2000

Dr.-Ing. Birgit Thoben received her diploma degree in Energy and Process Engineering from the Technical University of Berlin in the year 2000, completing her research project on batteries at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (FhG ISE) in Freiburg. She earned her PhD from the University of Stuttgart in 2006, conducting research on polymer electrolyte fuel cells at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Stuttgart.

She then joined Robert Bosch GmbH for more than 13 years, where she quickly rose to leadership roles.

From 2014 to 2018, Birgit served as the global innovation manager at Robert Bosch GmbH (~420.000 employees), where she significantly impacted the company's innovation activities. Her role involved making Bosch's innovation management visible both internally and externally through various media channels, including blog entries, articles, TV appearances, and promotional films. Birgit's groundbreaking concept, "Innovation Management Global," and its flagship project, "Platform 12," transformed Bosch's traditional mindset into a more modern, open, and experimental approach. She excelled at motivating her team to push beyond their limits and trust their intuition, leading to impressive technical achievements. Her exceptional communication skills allowed her to connect across professional networks, transferring knowledge across disciplines and guiding complex discussion processes. She established and gained acceptance for her innovative ideas, proving the effectiveness of her approach to lateral thinking in business model innovation. Birgit 's tenure at Bosch showcased her as a visionary leader in innovation management, blending science, technology, and art.

Since 2013, Birgit has worked for the European Commission in roles as Evaluator, Reviewer, and Innovation Radar Expert, and since 2023, she was elected as an Expert for the Swiss Innovation Agency – Innosuisse from the State of Switzerland.
On 1^st May 2024, she was appointed Honorary Associate Professor of the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham.

In 2019, Birgit founded Future.Solutions Sàrl in Switzerland, where she serves as CEO. The company specialises in consulting on innovation management and hydrogen technologies. Through Future.Solutions Academy®, she coaches entrepreneurs on launching online businesses, focusing on equipping highly skilled hydrogen technology professionals with essential business skills to drive the commercial transition to a hydrogen society. In addition to her role at the Academy, Birgit provides direct consultation and transactional coaching to clients, offering tailored guidance in innovation management and hydrogen technology to meet their specific needs.

Birgit's skill set and professional experience covers the area of:

• hydrogen fuel cell technologies (SOFC and PEM),
• hydrogen applications (mobile and stationary),
• mass manufacturing
• innovation management,
• business development and strategy,
• leadership and team management,
• public engagement and communication,
• entrepreneurship coaching,
• design thinking and business model innovation,
• proposal development and consortium management.

Joint European Summerschool (JESS) in Athens: Business Development and Innovations Management Insights, 10 credits, annually since 2013.

Lecturer in Innovation Management and Business Development ICN - Artem Business School, MBA-Course, Nancy, France, 2018 to 2020.

KICstartH2

 KICStartH2 is a partnership of universities and continuous professional development (CPD) educators that aim to teach and up-skill the European workforce through blended learning,  modulesincluding targeted training support to small businesses and start-ups.

European Hydrogen Academy

The European Hydrogen Academy consortium brings together representatives from multiple educational projects in order to:

• build and sustain a network of over 100 universities (The Network of 100) offering recognised qualifications, specialisations, and degrees in hydrogen technologies,
• build and sustain a network of over 500 schools integrating hydrogen topics into their science teaching, including technical schools and colleges with more specific technical training,
• create a network of 5 hands-on, physical training laboratories,
• provide free training materials across European languages to lecturers and teachers in order to enable educational staff to deliver the vast body of educational measures necessary

Green SKHy (associated partner)

17 project partners from six countries collaborate on developing a common action plan to enhance competencies and remove obstacles to the development of the hydrogen sector in Europe, build a transnational network of training actors and technical platforms/laboratories dedicated to hydrogen, and ensure the acculturation and skill enhancement of stakeholders in the hydrogen sector, including SMEs, local elected representatives, trainers, teachers, multipliers, and citizens.

Memberships

• Steering Group Member for Commercialisation Project “Manufacturing of Smart Oxide Fuel Cells”, Tampere University, Business Finland, since Dec. 2023.
• Advisory Board Member: Ecoptope Ecole Polytechnique Federal Lausanne March to Dec. 2022.