Valencia will be the first headquarters outside of Germany of the Center for Digital Technology and Management of Munich -CDTM-, one of the most renowned public formation centres of innovation and entrepreneurship

The CDTM, that aims to establish a European net of centres, has chosen Valencia as a first location after the initiative presented by the Generalitat, the Valencia City Hall, the Technical University of Valencia and the University of Valencia.

The councillor of Finance and Economical Sectors, Borja Sanjuan, has positively valued the German centre’s decision “since it is one more sign of it being Valencia’s moment. We are in the map of good things”.

“Valencia is cradle of talent and the public universities we have in the city are a big catalyst, that is why the CDTM has chosen Valencia as their first headquarters abroad: for the resources we have and the city model we have developed based on innovation, technology and knowledge. When the road is clear and the agents get involved, good projects choose our city”, defended Sanjuan.

A commission with representatives of the public universities of the city travelled to Munich the past October to get to know first hand the functioning of this centre, valuing positively the initiative and organization of the CDTM. Afterwards, a commission from the CDTM formed by the management team, students, teachers and former students, travelled to Valencia to get to know the city’s innovation ecosystem, benefitting from the Valencia Digital Summit ceremony.

In this way, the director of the University of Valencia, Maria Vicenta Mestre, has stated that “the arrival of the CDTM becomes one more step into the consolidation of Valencia, and its first University, as a research node and knowledge transference, fact that matches perfectly the philosophy we have been developing at the Parc Científic for over 10 years”. On her part, the vice-rector of Innovation and Transference Rosa Donat highlights the huge specific value that this new collaboration has and that -she stated- “opens the doors to an immense number of formative and human high quality resources for our student body, along with our transference, innovation and teaching policies, and in such a cutting edge field as the Digital Technology”.

On their part, the leaders of the expansion project of the CDTM state that “Valencia is a city that’s open to Europe, with a lot of talent nurtured by the public universities, a solid industry, a growing entrepreneurial ecosystem and a clear strategy to become a technological pole in the Mediterranean. The vision of the CDTM is quite aligned with the city’s strategy. We believe that the CDTM can become a referent in formation, innovation and entrepreneurship inside the Spanish ecosystem with the goal of consolidating the bridges between Spain and Germany.”

More and better cutting-edge formation opportunities in Valencia

The CDTM is established in Valencia, in collaboration with the Technical University of Valencia and the University of Valencia, and it will offer the student body of both centres its flagship program in Technology Management.

This program, that aims to become the leader program of innovation in Europe, will unite students of different fields and will offer them a high quality formation in collaboration with pioneer technological enterprises.

The first edition will take place this year in La Harinera, where the management team will coordinate the program and where the selected students will be trained.

The CDTM is already searching for profiles of graduate students and enterprises that want to participate on innovation projects.

CDTM reference centre in entrepreneurship

The CDTM was founded 25 years ago and nowadays it’s a reference in technological innovation and entrepreneurship.

It has a net of around 1000 former students, many of which ended up founding their own startup after their formation in the program.

In Germany, the program that will be initiated in Valencia is one of the most competitive studying programs, with an admission rate of under 5%. And this selection process is precisely part of this program’s success.

In the last year, the affiliated startups to the CDTM (https://www.cdtm.de/about-us/startups/), with one or more founders formed in the program, received more than 1000 million euros support total, which is equal to 11% of all the venture capital raised in Germany in 2022. Within the startups created by former students of the CDTM we can find 7 unicorns, in between them we have Personio or Trade Republic, and we have successful cases such as pre.size, a startup of AI that was acquired last year by Meta (Facebook). Beyond the startups, the CDTM forms their students to have a big impact in different fields of society, in big corporations as well as the public sector.