Frank Neuber of DREWAG, Dresden’s public utility company, removes the heavy lock on the door to Hall 9 of ‘Kraftwerk Mitte’. He pushes it open, and we enter a world where past and future meet. The hall – 3,000 square meters in size – is four stories high, with old brick walls. The air is cool in this abandoned control center, once full of humming transformers. In recent years, DREWAG has breathed new life into the old industrial site, which occupies 40,000 square meters of the city center. Until 1994, it was a smoking, coal-fired power station. Now, it’s home to cultural institutions like the Staatsoperette Dresden and theater junge generation. The Heinrich-Schütz-Konservatorium holds lessons here, and there’s also an energy museum, a nightclub, and cafés. It’s a creative interdisciplinary space, and Ronald Scholz just loves it. Scholz is the co-founder of software guidance firm Sherpa.Dresden. He and Nico Herzberg, head of vocational training at SAP Dresden, follow Frank Neuber through a still-vacant building. The paint is peeling off the walls in the stairwell, but that doesn’t stand in the way of Scholz’s vision.

The large software corporation wants to be open to the public. Hall 9 will become a kind of shop window, and a meeting place for Saxon businesses. Herzberg and Scholz follow Neuber up to the fourth floor, which is illuminated by a long skylight.
In three years, this will be a conference room, a place where ideas come to life. Herzberg and Scholz put their heads together and start discussing the upcoming renovations. They are not alone in their undertaking: Other partners have joined the project, including a bank and a health insurance company. There’s an urgent need for projects like this one: “There are so many companies in this state with over 100 employees. They have to start addressing the topic of digitization,” Scholz declares. It’s a topic he’s passionate about. “Those companies need a place where they can present themselves to potential employees with the right skill sets. They need a place where they can develop further.” It’s another sentence we can take to heart.