German and Israeli Innovation: The Best of Two Worlds

This study reviews – through desk research and expert interviews with Mittelstand companies, startups and ecosystem experts – the current status of the Israeli startup ecosystem and the Mittelstand region of North Rhine- Westphalia (NRW), Germany. As a case study, it highlights potential opportunities for collaboration and analyzes different engagement modes that might serve to connect the two regions. The potential synergies between the two economies are based on a high degree of complementarity. A comparison of NRW’s key verticals and Israel’s primary areas of innovation indicates that there is significant overlap in verticals, such as artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), sensors and cybersecurity. Israeli startups can offer speed, agility and new ideas, while German Mittelstand companies can contribute expertise in production and scaling, access to markets, capital and support. The differences between Mittelstand companies and startups are less pronounced than those between startups and big corporations. However, three current barriers to fruitful collaboration have been identified: 1) a lack of access, 2) a lack of transparency regarding relevant players in the market, and 3) a lack of the internal resources needed to select the right partners, often due to time constraints or a lack of internal expertise on this issue. To ensure that positive business opportunities ensue, Mittelstand companies and startups alike have to be proactive in their search for cooperation partners and draw on a range of existing engagement modes (e.g., events, communities, accelerators). The interviews and the research conducted for this study made clear that no single mode of engagement can address all the needs and challenges associated with German-Israeli collaboration

Wladimir Kaminer\u27s Public Persona and Writings within the Discourse on German National Identity

The purpose of the following thesis is to examine the concept of German national literature as part of the discourse on German national identity after unification. I concentrate on one representative of post-Wende German literature--Wladimir Kaminer, a Russian émigré of Jewish descent who immigrated to Germany in 1990 and in the course of ten years became a best-selling German writer. This study is the first scholarly analysis of both Kaminer’s public persona and his writings. On the basis of Kaminer’s interviews with various Russian- and German-speaking media, I focus on his positioning within the discourse on German national identity and identify changes it underwent in the last four years. In order to trace the effect of these transformations on Kaminer’s writings, I utilize an alterity paradigm in comparative reading of two of Kaminer’s collections of stories: Russendisko (2000) and Ich mache mir Sorgen, Mama (2004). This comparison shows that four years after the publication of his first major work Kaminer makes even stronger efforts to undermine a nationality as a stable and essential notion, both on an individual and collective level. He does so by exposing otherness on inter- and intracultural levels and ultimately he focuses on metacultural otherness, i.e., alterity based on characteristics other than nationality. I argue that Kaminer’s conscious choice to live on the verge of two cultures enables him to bring Russian and German cultures closer and establish transnational and transcultural dialogue. Kaminer, thus, becomes a strong voice within the discourse on multicultural Germany as part of redefining German national identity after unification

Getting creative in the languages classroom

The following principles are central to the work of ‘Linguistic Creativity in Language Learning’, a research strand of Creative Multilingualism: We create language every day. Language diversity facilitates creative diversity. Linguistic diversity nurtures diverse expression of feelings, thoughts and identities, and diverse ways of knowing and seeing the world. In this chapter we outline how they might be considered in relation to classroom language learning. One of the authors of this chapter..

Review Essay

The studies of global social and economic inequalities in social sciences that go beyond “methodological nationalism” are recent but have older roots. The first theories to reflect on the global and trans-regional interconnections and asymmetric regional developments within the capitalist system can be traced back to a Marxian tradition. These theories were critical to the conventional approach to social inequalities (hegemonic in the Western European and US academic centers in the 20th century) restricted to within nation-state boundaries. However, during the last three decades, several new approaches have emerged to capture the construction of social inequalities within the context of transnationalization, which extend beyond defined political units such as the nation-state. Transnationalization is creating a new challenge to social scientists to review critically their premises related to their reference units and to study social inequalities by focusing on social, economic, cultural and political interdependencies from the global perspective. This paper will focus specifically on four different approaches to global inequalities: (1) global and international comparative research; (2) the world-system perspective; (3) the transnational approach; and (4) the approach of entanglements. The aim is to draw a critical balance of these recent approaches, examine the central theoretical arguments and empirical findings, identify shortcomings and make suggestions for further research

“Beyond-the-box” thinking on future war: The art and science of unrestricted warfare

Tese de Mestrado "Master of Military Operational Art and Science", Air Command And Staff College, Air University Maxwell Air Force Base, AlabamaGlobalization, the technological interconnectedness of societies, and America’s military prowess have created the opportunity and motive for future peer competitors to exploit Unrestricted Warfare (URW) strategies. This holistic approach to warfare employs coherent and integrated multidimensional actions, synchronized in time and space, combining all available means, including military and civilian, violent and non-lethal force, targeting adversary’s wide-spectrum domains, aiming to affect opponent’s will and capabilities during times of real or perceived conflict. Shifting the emphasis from military to political, economic, information, and cultural engagements, future peer competitors will aim to constrain the US’s response within a regional or global sphere of interest, degrading its combat effectiveness, by collapsing government organizations, and disrupting the normal flow of society. Such perspective produces several strategic implications, exposing legal and moral dilemmas, the increasing civilianization of war, and risk society challenges. The fact that warfare is expanding beyond the military domain continues to constrain Western thought, challenging military and political decision-makers. Therefore, it demands a shift of mindset in order to understand that the main strategic differences towards warfare are cultural, and that warfare should be viewed as a holistic endeavor. Hence, the importance of a coherent integration of US’s national security strategy. This involves a three step approach based on renewed strategic thought, the purposeful adaptation leading to a holistic-agency approach, and a people-centric perspective enhancing the education of the national security practitioners