The Black Forest Innovation Summit is a series of events organised by Furtwangen University designed to bring together businesses, academia, alumni, and other stakeholders from the region. With the theme, “University. Business. Impact.”, the summit focuses on current challenges, new markets, technological developments and concrete approaches to collaboration.
The goal is to translate this exchange into collective impact and actively promote cooperation between the university, the business community and the region.
12 November 2026: "Resilient Economy and Region"
In 2026, our Black Forest Innovation Summit will be held under the theme: A Resilient Economy and Region.
We are organising the event in partnership with Volksbank Mittlerer Schwarzwald eG
Look forward to:
- Insights from academia and industry
- Networking with companies and other stakeholders from the region
- Insights into current developments and future trends
- New perspectives for collaboration, knowledge transfer, and concrete next steps
Keynote: Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe
Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe is the keynote speaker at the Black Forest Innovation Summit 2026.
Expert in leadership, innovation and corporate sustainability at the Technical University of Munich
Prof. Dr. Isabell M. Welpe is a professor and head of the Strategy and Organisation Research Group at the Technical University of Munich. Her current projects focus on the digital transformation of companies, the impact of digital technologies on the economy and organisations, and the future of leadership and work/organisation design. She has published studies on topics including “Disrupting Industries with Blockchain,” “Digital Business Models,” and “Social Media as Information Markets.” She has spoken multiple times at the Digital Life Design (DLD) conference and was named by Capital magazine as one of the Top 40 Under 40 in the “digital elite” and among the “leading 40 thinkers in HR.” Her current research focuses on the potential of emerging technologies, such as AI and Web3, for novel value chains, business models and organisational forms.
Isabell M. Welpe studied management at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and as a visiting student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA. She did her master’s degree at the London School of Economics. She has been a visiting professor at the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, USA, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Economics. She is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Blockchain Technologies at University College London. Her research has been featured in the media, including in the Harvard Business Manager, MIT Sloan Management Review, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Handelsblatt, ManagerMagazin, Die Welt, BR and WirtschaftsWoche. Her work has received numerous national and international awards, including the Best Paper Award from the Academy of Management (AOM), the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) and the Association of University Professors of Business Administration (VHB). Professor Welpe is a board member of the Centre for Digital Technology & Management (CDTM) and a member of the “Münchner Kreis”. She also serves on several advisory boards.
Your key contacts
Furtwangen University:
Susanne Morić, Relationship Management,Email application is started: susanne.moric(at)hs-furtwangen.de
Volksbank Mittlerer Schwarzwald eG:
Carina Mark, Sustainability Manager, Email application is started:carina.mark(at)voba-msw.de
2024: The future in view
In 2024, Furtwangen University launched a new platform for future-oriented topics and solutions with the “Black Forest Innovation Summit.” At the kick-off event on the Furtwangen campus, the Baden-Württemberg Minister of Science, Research, and the Arts, Petra Olschowski, was the guest of honour, and high-ranking representatives from academia, business, and politics, as well as members of the university executive of other colleges and universities, accepted our invitation. At an extensive innovation exhibition, guests learned about projects and research collaborations through which HFU is finding solutions to the challenges of tomorrow.
Internal link opens in the same window:Read more about the Black Forest Innovation Summit