"One day was not enough"

Excited murmurs, joyful anticipation and a feeling as if she had been transported back to her own student days and was sitting in the university lecture hall. That's how Katrin Joschek, European patent attorney at Covestro, describes the atmosphere in the German Pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai.

Together with her husband Jens Joschek, Head of Innovation Excellence, and their children, she was in Dubai. "Since we've been there before, of course we didn't want to miss the opportunity to visit the Expo," Katrin tells us. Coming across an event of this magnitude in the middle of the desert - it was almost a bit surreal. "One day was not enough to look at all the exhibits and pavilions," she recalls.

36 exhibits in the German Pavilion

Together with her family, she was able to visit five pavilions after all. Katrin Joschek particularly remembers the differences to the German Pavilion. In some pavilions it was mainly show and visual effects that impressed. In the German Pavilion, it was rather quiet, with the focus mainly on transferring knowledge and interactive learning. "Visitors were guided through the themed areas along set paths. You almost had the impression you were visiting a university or academy. Just typically German," says Katrin and laughs.

A total of 36 innovative and creative exhibits awaited visitors and guests in the German Pavilion. "The focus was very much on sustainability. There were three different areas, so-called labs, on the core topics of energy, the city of the future and biodiversity." The Covestro exhibit on the topic of the circular economy, a CO₂ cannon, was located in the City of the Future. "It was directly the first exhibit in the room. You couldn't walk past it at all, and pretty much every visitor tried it out as they entered the room."

See more here: Future City – Materials | Covestro
 

The Glamour of Dubai

In the dark, the Expo exhibit had its own special appeal once again, Katrin reports. "You didn't notice many effects at all or differently in the daylight. In the evening, that was really the splendor of Dubai." Her very personal highlight was water masses running down from above, which were illuminated by light effects. But the solar panels in front of the Sustainability Pavilion were also simply gigantic, she says. Curved plates with solar panels were attached to pedestals as wide as the trunk of a redwood tree. This allowed the panels to rotate like a flower to the sun, generating more energy than if they were immobile.

It’s all about the team

What are exciting projects like the Innovation Celebration worth if there is no team spirit? During my time at Innovation, I was very lucky to work with a great team. I was allowed to organize the procedure of the event together with the team, plan various sessions and prepare it digitally. This is exactly how a Traineeship should be.